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why are internet radios so expensive?
Davy_Duke
Posts: 83 Forum Member
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i bought a tablet on ebay for £29 six months back. its still working very well. the best thing about it is i run a world radio app on it and the connection always is spot on, never fails. my question is, this world radio app is running off wi-fi on a £29 tablet so why are most internet radios in the region of £79-£150?
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Yes, it was new, on ebay uk.:)
I would also expect the audio quality of an internet radio to be MUCH better than that of a tablet or I wouldn't consider it.
actually the audio quality depends on the speakers. i can get a really good clear booming sound from the speakers i am using on my tablet now. thanks.
instead of laughing at me, why dont you buy one. sounds great to me. the best thing is that world internet radio is awesome. ive counted 17 channels dedicated just to the beatles songbook, and 30 channels playing christmas songs, carols, all year round. its awesome. im happy so keep laughing.
Well you have to at least add the cost of the speakers on to the tablet or it's an unfair comparison.
Even after that you then have to compare the standalone product with a tablet plus power supply plus speakers etc and decide which is more convenient. It may be the tablet if you always have that with you anyway or it may be the internet radio.
Many internet radios also do DAB.
Actually the audio quality depends on EVERY link in the chain. Though speakers can have a greater effect it would be wrong to suggest that other bits of kit don't have some influence on the resulting sound.
If that works out for you then that's the way to go, that doesn't make a stand alone internet radio a bad deal though.
The way i see it is its the same as GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out). Its like people who convert 128k mp3 to 320k for better sound. If the information isnt there in the first place then it cant be outputted. Further example. If you have a basic onboard sound chip on your pc - connecting it to top of the range speakers will still not output the same quality than if you had connected them to a pc with a dedicated sound card.
A dedicated internet radio is (mostly) going to ouput a better sound than a tablet that is engineered to do lots of different things (the sound quality just being one of them). Compare a tablet to the sound from a Roberts 93i internet radio - there is no comparison - speakers or not.
Also worth noting that the quality of the stream will also have a massive effect. A 64k mono stream through high quality stereo speakers will still sound shite (acutally worse than it will sound through a mono speaker).
Also should be noted you will be pushed to find a quality tablet for £29 - second hand or brand new. The most basic tablet i would consider would be a Nexus 7 (around £120 at Argos). My experience with the cheap brands hasnt been good at all - touch screens failing, flickering screens, low resolution, old insecure Android versions (stagefright vulnerable etc)
£29 for a brand new tablet sounds like an amazing bargain, perhaps too amazing. Could you tell us more about it, make, model number specification etc?
I wouldn't go lower than 320k for an MP3 but would prefer 16bit Flac.
You can get a kindle fire for £49 (or a website claimed) or a hudl at £99. The former is a half price loss leader.
Maybe the op is running ginger bread?
Maybe but I would like him to tell us, he seems rather reluctant to tell us about it or who he bought it from. Remember he said it was new not second hand.
Thanks, don't know why the o/p didn't tell us what he bought but I'm sure you are right. Here it is on Amazon. Very variable ratings indeed but it is very cheap and Amazon have a returns service.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/BTC-Bluetooth-Multi-touch-Pre-loaded-Supported/dp/B00SZDJEZQ
;-)
Spent days deciding whether to fork out £100+ for a Roberts or Pure internet radio. Decided I'd had enough faffing around and bought one...and a great purchase it was too. Fantastic audio (Pure Sensia 200), sits neatly on the cupboard where it's plugged in, can carry it around the house easily (ace battery life, but has to be bought separate) and the radio's there at just a button push.
Can also take it into the garage, the wi-fi's strong enough! Plus if you like the sound of a tune, it can be recorded with a button push. Only thing against is there's no "freeze" so you can't marry up a sports commentary to the TV picture.
Biggest plusses of all, no Bauer/Global/Absolute crap.....just pure and virtually ad/DJ-free music from the likes of Ibiza's Global and Sonica, Polskastacja, Jenny Trance....etc etc.....just bliss.
So why's it more expensive? You get what you pay for, I suppose - quality. No doubt prices will reduce; maybe someday Argos will offer a Bush internet tin for £19.95
But then when you consider the audio devices most people use to listen to the radio and/or music in general today that would make no difference to them whatsoever.
Even on good equipment most people would struggle to tell the difference between the two formats.
(1) volume of production and the resulting economies of production
A tablet is a multi-use device compared to an internet radio which is focused on a specific task. Naturally then the market for tablets is much larger and so the manufacturing scale is bigger too. That then generates economies of scale that reduce both hardware and labour costs for the manufacturer.
(2) Standing on the shoulder of giants
Your tablet's O/S is Android. This is the most open of any of the mobile operating systems; more so than Apple's IoS and MIcrosoft, so it's a natural choice as an 'off the shelf' ready-to-go O/S. In other words, the tablet manufacturer has little-to-no-involvement in developing an O/S for their product and hence the production costs are lower.
Compare and contrast this situation to the requirements to produce specialised software to run a dedicated device. Someone has to be responsible for writing and maintaining the code. That's a far larger and more costly commitment, and it's a cost that has to be spread between a much smaller number of units sold (see point 1) and so it is reflected in a higher end price.
(3) Ongoing support (or the lack of it)
If a feature on an internet radio stops working (and presuming that the service it runs from is still operating) then your complaint goes straight to the radio manufacturer. There's a cost associated with dealing with those kind of issues whether reactively or pro-actively.
But who do you complain to if the radio player app on your tablet stops working? It's not the tablet maker, they only made the hardware so the O/S isn't their concern. It's not necessarily the O/S producer either (and good luck trying the get Android or any of the O/S manufacturers to respond to you on an individual basis) as they might be hosting an app developed by a third party company. So maybe it's the 3rd party app developer, but they could equally reply that (a) it's a change in the O/S that caused a problem, or (b) the service provider has changed something, or (c) it's a free app and they'll get around to making a new version when they can. However you look at it the tablet manufacturer doesn't have to provide ongoing support and so the costs associated with that are taken out of the pricing equation.
(4) Hardware differences
The internet radio is (generally) a bespoke device which includes elements such as an amplifier, speaker(s), radio receivers etc and certain elements that may be subject to additional regulation and the costs associated with that.
Generic tablets can often be found rebranded and the same product sold under different names in various countries around the globe by virtue of the universality of their application.
The hardware differences also have implications for the import duty applied at the port of entry. It appears that FM/AM radios are subject to 14%. DAB radios 9%, and as best as I can see without spending too much time on it internet radios attract a tariff of 3.7%. The tariff rate on tablets is 0%.
(5) Routes to market
I don't believe it's unreasonable to suggest that with the advent of Ebay and Amazon it's now easier than ever for someone in an office or bedroom to set up as a reseller and so bypass much of the conventional chain between manufacturer and end customer that add costs to product. Many would view that as overwhelmingly positive, however it's easy to forget that these pop-up sellers can disappear just as quickly as they appeared once a product has either sold through or starts to exhibit some major flaws. Where does that leave the consumer? This applies just as much to sellers of cheaper Internet Radios as it does tablets.
Established and reputable brands have a duty of care to their customer base whether it is the reseller or the end consumer if they want to maintain the brand reputation and continue doing business. There's a cost associated with doing so. Pop-up resellers are less concerned about this.
Conclusion
While your particular tablet might have cost £25, you could just as easily have bought an ASUS, Google, Samsung, Lenovo or other branded 7" tablet and spent anything from £150 to £250 for what appears to be the same functionality. The comparison in price then wouldn't have been so stark. Beyond that though there are sufficient differences in the target markets that have wide-ranging implications for manufacturing costs and the general cost of sales to provide a reasonable explanation for the price differences.