14 DAY TRIAL // Sagem (France) is one of the world's best-known companies when it comes to what they are producing in the communication industry, be those products smartphones, faxes, comm terminals or whatever you might think of.
Now it looks like Sagem is willing to make a step towards home electronics with the new device intimately called My Dual Radio 700. My Dual Radio is definitely cool: a rather unusual design, at least unusual amidst the actual trend and it has a lot of nice features such as WiFi and Ethernet stream, FM radio (wow, classic stuff!), RCA and 3.5mm jack connectors, as well as USB port, alarm clock and remote control.
Now, all these things may look a bit forcedly embedded in a shape which reminds me of the deco designs of the 60's: the radio unit looks like most tabletop radios but the speaker is larger than the rest of the body and is placed in one side. The LCD display is indeed readable while the controls placed atop of the box are quite intuitive and handy.
The very visible antenna will catch any WiFi or Ethernet signal broadcast in your area and you can actually listen to internet radio without the usual computer needed. Now, if it's about listening... they say My Dual Radio 700 sports a 2x2W amplifier... it's perfectly OK with me, except that I can't see but one speaker and its housing does not resemble a bass cannon-design at all. Since Sagem doesn't brag at all about what speaker(s) have they used I can't expect but a middle-class one at most, otherwise they'd have specced it, I presume.
For under $200 it's possible that Sagem My Dual Radio 700 (why 700?) may find some customers willing to hand over all their digital radio to it. I wouldn't?ever.
