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I was really excited when I bought this because I figured it was exactly what I was looking for, a way to listen to my iPod in the shower with the option to listen to the radio if I wanted. I was happy for all of 5 minutes.

Ok so first of all, as previous reviews have mentioned, design and style were CLEARLY not a concern for the developers of this product…super-heavy, as in several pounds, and pretty ugly in a what-we-thought-the-future-was-going-to-look-like-when-we-were-in-the-1980′s-kind of way…but I was willing to overlook this in exchange for its functionality. Until I knew better, that is.

The radio portion of it is okay if you can manage to eek the dial RIGHT onto exactly the right spot to get a station in. Okay, maybe that has something to do with it being in the shower and having tile impeding the signal reception, but REALLY? I could only get maybe three stations, and anything on AM sounded static-y and buzzed the whole time, making it maddening to try to listen to.

As for the iPod part of it, oops, silly me, my iPod is my iPHONE, which absolutely no way fits in the cubby you’re supposed to dock your player in, it’s too tall, by at least a few mm (don’t believe that little picture, I have a 3GS and it did NOT fit). That’s a dealbreaker for me, and I guess won’t bother you if you have a regular iPod or Nano, but if you’re one of the millions of people who now own an iPhone or iPod Touch, then you’re screwed. You can probably kind of mash the phone in there if you wrangle it a bit and angle it onto the connector, but I definitely wouldn’t recommend it, unless you don’t mind buying a new device when you ruin it. There is an auxiliary cord, a very short one, so if you pull it out as far as it will go, and hang the radio outside the shower so you can leave the player’s cubby door open, and don’t mind leaving your iPod dangling from the auxiliary cord (it was actually a pretty secure connection, but I still hung the radio right above the counter in case it decided to fall) and the sound being muffled through the shower door, defeating the purpose of a SHOWER radio, then the size issue won’t be a problem for you. Yes, I did that for a little while, I had spent the money and I was determined to use the silly thing.

And finally, worst of all, it worked for two months. TWO MONTHS. And now won’t make a sound at all. Not through the aux cord, not through the radio, nothing. And I most of the time I didn’t even have it IN the shower like it’s supposed to be. So it’s basically completely useless except as a weird shower decoration. Oh, and a clock. The clock still works. Hooray.

In conclusion, I probably wouldn’t risk the money on this, it’s too much for what you might get, BUT it gets two stars because when it WORKED, the sound volume was great and it sounded pretty good when I could find a radio station that came in or when I dared to play my phone. I will try again with something that has really good reliability reviews.
Rating: 2 / 5

I guess the main reason you’d buy this is to play your iPod (or other small MP3 type player) in the shower, literally, and to that much it works.

The compartment that holds the iPod will keep it dry, the rubber seals remind me of some under-water camera kits I have. For Apple iPods with the standard iPod connector you set the iPod inside the dock- I’ve used it with the classic and even the iPod touch fits- and seal it in… there is a dark window you can see through to navigate using external controls provided on the radio… If you don’t have an Apple iPod but a Zune or other generic MP3 player you can still use it via a standard ‘headphone’ type plug inside the compartment but obviously you can control it so you probably should just set it to play and let it be.

It will charge your iPod but only when it’s physically plugged into wall power- when running off batteries (which it would be in the shower) then it can’t charge the iPod so it will get annoying taking it in and out all the time.

The actual controls (switches, dials) have lots of resistance, you need 2 hands to turn the dials or move switches- one to hold the radio in place and one to actually do what you want to do- again very annoying in the shower or anywhere else you might ‘hang’ the radio.

The biggest cons however in my book is the poor quality of using it as an AM/FM radio… first off as an AM radio it says right in the manual they strongly recommend no iPod is inserted in the device AND you are running off batteries only- plugging in an iPod or the power adapter causes lots of static in the AM bands making most stations unlistenable. The FM quality, like usual, is better, but still suffers from the very stiff analog dial controls making it hard to tune in a station.

I bought this as a replacement for an all digital bath AM/FM/CD/MP3 player that is no longer on the market, although this Jensen radio is half the price it is a marginal product at best- I will keep it but keep looking for a better product as well.

Finally a word on the battery life- I went through 2 sets of brand new batteries with this radio in just a few weeks- even with the radio off and iPod disconnected this thing eats up batteries like no radio I’ve ever seen before- you’ll be replacing the batteries frequently whether you listen to it or not.

The overall feel is very cheap- I’d say this feels like a $20 – $25 product, tops… no quality parts went into this design from analog controls to 1980′s crystal-black LED technology.

Rating: 2 / 5