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 as most people's home MP3 collections.
The only thing that comes close to matching the Tangent as an all-in-one table radio is the equally beautiful Slim Devices Squeezebox 3, but that's a very different device. Technically, it isn't
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an internet radio since it doesn't have its own integrated speaker, but it's been recommended in PC Pro (web ID: 97696) too many times to ignore. Hook it up to a proper set of speakers via either analogue or digital outputs and it will do everything an internet radio will do and more. You can display RSS feeds on the glorious vacuum fluorescent 320 x 32-pixel screen and even play games using the remote control.
You can stream your MP3s from a PC or notebook using the SlimServer software, and this also allows you to use a web browser to set up all sorts of favourite stations, URLs for RSS feeds, and control playlists without having to do it on the device itself. There are a whole host of ambient sounds to set the mood in a room - running streams, bustling rainforests and even, should the mood take you, the noise of a train passing - and you can even choose to wake to any of them via the alarm function. If you want an all-in-one radio to sit on the table while you eat your Weetabix the Squeezebox certainly isn't it, but to accompany a PC and a decent set of speakers it's simply a superb device.
