Coby CX-9 AM/FM Radio

Pros: Inexpensive, good battery life
Cons: Poor sound quality, poor reception, uncomfortable earbuds

Introduction Like a whole lot of other people, my wife and I made a New Year’s resolution to start exercising regularly and to eat healthier. While the jury is still out on our eating habits, we did commit to a 1-year gym membership at a ...

Pros: Under $15, clock, presets, pretty sturdy.
Cons: Poor shielding, tuner, volume, and paint.

I bought this radio (for $12 or so) 3 years ago while away serving in the Army. I still use it daily and it functions--but it's not great. For a cheap radio the size of a small cell phone, it has a reasonable amount of features: A back light when the ...

Pros: Excellent size (small sleek). Great reception, digital tuner picks up every single station EXACTLY.
Cons: Sometimes need to "aim" radio towards best signal

I was pleasantly surprised by this radio, i had a need for a small am/fm radio for travel and the other brands i bought were horrible. Some of those radios (analog dial junk!) could only receive one station on the AM band from 500 all the way to 1500, ...

Pros: Cheap, receives very local stations fine, good sound quality, small size
Cons: Overloads near strong stations, poor selectivity, uneven volume control, noisy AM reception

After I broke my Sony Walkman radio, I bought this radio from a drugstore. I live in Central NJ near the NJ 101.5 tower, and between New York and Philadelphia. I noticed that the adjacent NYC and Philly stations were bleeding onto each other. This radio has very poor selectivity. A station 40 miles away at 96.5 could be heard at 96.8. At home, it was hard to hear any station from NYC or Philly due to interference from NJ 101.5 only 2 miles away. This is a poor performance radio. It may be ok if you live in a city or the stations you like are nearby, but for the rest of us, it's a waste of money. If you pay $15 for this, you will get a product worth fifteen bucks, not more.

Pros: Great Reception, Easy to use controls, Impressive volume, overall value.
Cons: The provided ear plugs are rather poor, but any others work quite well.

This radio turned out to be a wonderful purchase for me. Even though I live in a remote area, all of my favorite local and national stations come in clear. The preset function is particularly handy. I can easily cycle through news, music, and weather in a few moments.

I definitely recommend this product.

Pros: There is hope as long as the store has a return policy.
Cons: Poor reception and bad construction are show-stoppers. This is a bad radio.

I paid $9.99 for this radio at Blockbuster Video, knowing that such a low price represented a calculated risk. True to my apprehensions, the Coby turned out to be a shoddy piece of crap, both in terms of workmanship and performance. Indoor reception was poor, which made it useless for my purposes, my acceptance for it's other weaknesses notwithstanding. The bottom line is that if you're so poor that you need to spend ten bucks on a radio, then perhaps that money might be better spent on ramen noodles.