Labs

When internet radio first started gaining momentum, many dismissed it for its limited content and low-quality audio. But today internet radio is huge, with thousands of stations available across the globe, a number which is growing all the time as regular broadcasters move online as well. Best of all, many now broadcast at bit rates of 128kb/sec or higher, resulting in sound quality that's as good

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as most people's home MP3 collections.

The quality of the devices used to connect to these stations varies, however. Take the BT Internet Radio, for example: aside from being a particularly unattractive piece of kit, the interface is poorly designed, with a basic two-line display on the front while the physical controls are on the top. Up on a shelf, you'll be tilting it downwards to see what buttons you're pressing; down on a table, you'll be tilting it upwards to see the screen. Either way, it's an awkward device to use comfortably.

It runs off the mains only, so if you take it out of the house you'll need to stay within range of a socket, and it took an age to connect to stations using our network. The quality of the speakers is pretty average, as you'd expect from a portable radio, but the fact that it isn't really portable makes that less forgivable. The only plus point - it's the cheapest device here - is soon rendered irrelevant by the next radio in the queue.