EtonElite Traveler AM/FM, Longwave, Shortwave Radio with RDS, World Clock, 500 Stations, Dial Tuning, Alarm, Sleep Timer, Leather Case, Portable International Radio with High-Contrast LCD

I ordered this Eton Elite Traveler radio as an Amazon Warehouse bargain. It arrived in like-new condition in its original box with its leather flip cover and instructions. Reading through the instruction booklet and setting it up took me all of about 10 minutes. The radio is powered by 4 AA alkaline batteries, not supplied, or an A/C adapter, not supplied, and probably not needed for most people. This beautiful looking small radio sounds great and provides a big sound. The radio receives AM/FM/SW and includes RDS which is a fun feature that displays scrolling station and song information for stations that support it. Finding stations is easily accomplished by either manual tuning using the radio's tuning wheel, or by using the radio's ATS pre-sets feature. This radio has many desirable features such as a wheel for dialing in and displaying local times from around the world, a selectable temperature/signal strength/clock display, adjustments for display brightness, a choice for 9/10 k tuning, fast/slow tuning, and can be set up as a bedside alarm. The main features that made this radio shine for me were its size, ease of operation, a bright readable display, RDS, ATS, good receive sensitivity for FM stations supporting RDS, and a big clear sound. This radio checks all the boxes for me. Things I would wish for would be an external antenna jack, a local/DX choice button, a microSD slot, and a longer antenna. I haven't tested the radio's SW receive capability, but I would strongly recommend anyone intending to buy this radio for that purpose to add a clip-on roll-up wire antenna to their purchase. Also, as nice as the provided leather cover is, I took it off because it prevents me from using the kickstand on the back of the radio. Instead, I ordered an inexpensive generic hard case (6x4x2) for transporting and storing my radio. The Eton Elite Traveler is a fun and feature rich little radio. I suspect people rating it poorly may have had trouble understanding the setup instructions. I found this small radio to be reasonably priced considering it includes RDS, and for me an exceptional value as it was Amazon Warehouse purchase.

Two quick caveats; I'm writing this from the perspective of someone that is a complete Longwave/Shortwave beginner, and I've played with the unit from a fairly urban setting (meaning lots of radio interference...).First off, I was immediately struck by the finish and box-opening experience. Thought and effort went into this package. There were no corners cut, nor was there extra fluff. The leather cover that wraps around the radio is buttery soft and cradles the unit nicely. Everything looks and feels solid and robust.The FM & AM bands are, as others have noted, strong, clean, and easy to use. I wanted to test out the SW/LW capabilities, however, as I'd never used them, and knew that there was an outside chance I could pick up a station from far, far away. The instruction manual didn't go into enough detail to help me through that process, and the process of switching from FM-->AM-->SW-->LW isn't particularly intuitive. I spent an hour nosing around the net to pick up the basics...I will throw out this tip....if you can't get LW to work, try turning the radio off and then HOLD DOWN the AM/LW button until the unit toggles back to "LW on". There is an ability to "hide" LW from the regular functioning. This is in the manual, but I missed it the first couple times I read through it.In the end, I wasn't able to pick up anything on LW (and based on ancillary reading, I think this is normal?), and I could only pull in 2-3 Shortwave stations, one of which was relatively clear from India, I think (I'm on the West Coast of the US). I'm going to blame the lack of more breadth on the urban setting, however, lots of wifi routers, phone radios, wifi signals and other assorted interference bouncing around my house. I tend to think if I needed to use this little guy in an emergency situation with most of our modern technologies knocked out, that it would be more useful.I'd also note that for a radio enthusiast that travels a lot internationally, this is an exceptionally compact and useful unit, with the ability to nearly-instantaneously tune in local stations and change the time to local time at the turn of a dial. Neat!