RCA RCD-200- works for us!

My oldest kept asking for a ‘radio’- not a tape player, but one with a tuner on it. So, I went to Wal-Mart, bought a $20 one, plugged it up, turned it on, and it wouldn’t work. So, I shoved it back in the box and took it back and headed over to Best Buy, because I just happened to have a gift card that needed using. So, I bought the RCA RCD200, and it was only $40 something, and I only paid $20 something using my gift card.

This radio really isn’t all that big, I’d say it’s about a foot across and maybe about 8 inches or so deep- it fits just right on a dresser. It is mainly black with silver accents. It can run of AC power or you can put 6 D cell batteries in the bottom of it for power. This offers an AM/FM radio, CD player that can play CD-R and CD-RW discs, as well as an AUX function where you can plug in your MP3 player- that is if you have a cord, because it’s not included. Do note also there’s not a tape player on this dude. Which my kids have no idea what tapes are. You also have a little hole to plug in headphones.

This also offers a bass boost system (DBBS), sound equalizer, you can program radio stations into memory, also program CDs to play in the order you want them. This also has an LCD display on the front of the unit, which tells you the stations and what track of the CD you’re listening to. You also get a sound equalizer to toy with as well.

Programming the radio stations into memory is a pretty simple process, because the directions are laid out well and easily understandable. Just use the search buttons to tune to a station then press the Program button and hit the preset or – to assign it whatever number you want this particular station to be (you can have ten AM and 10 FM stations programmed in). Then to roll through your presets once you’re through, just hit preset or – to run through them.

Now CD operation is just as easy, you just use the power button to get to the CD function, which will come up on the left corner of the LCD screen. The area where you load the CD is on the very top of the unit, and the door opens really slowly. Then you know, just use the usual play, pause, stop and skip buttons to operate it. Also, to program it, just hit the program button like you did with the radio stations to program your CD. Let me note that this does not come with a remote control- I know I have a 10 year old Aiwa cassette/CD player that has one, which is long since been lost, but this one doesn’t have one- no big deal though.

Haven’t used the MP3 hookup yet, mainly because I don’t have the right cord for it, plus my kiddo just wanted a radio/CD player, and she has something else that plays her ipod Shuffle.

Anyway, what really got me to buy this one is that it had a digital radio tuner on it, rather than one of those big wheels which you had to turn ever so slightly to get to the right station to hear anything, plus you could program in all you fave stations and just hit one button to move from one to the other- this was going to be a whole lot more simple for my kid to operate. Once I told her what all the buttons do it was no problem for her to start scrolling through the station presets I set up for her.

As for the sound, well it’s not the best I’ve ever heard, but you get your $40 worth- I think it sounds pretty decent myself, especially with the Bass Boost going. Also if you get the sound equalizer going, which is set up for different types of music (country, rock, classical, pop, etc.) and you can have a pretty good sound to it.

As for battery life, well, we just use AC power here at our house, so I can’t comment on battery life- but at least it is available to use.

Overall, I really like this, it wasn’t all that expensive, and I love that the AM/FM is done digital wise rather than with a wheel. I would highly recommend this.