Retekess TR629 Customer Review: A Solid Mini Table Radio With AM Caveats

This is not my first rodeo -- er, radio! I'd never heard of Retekess before now, but have owned dozens of radios spanning decades. It's smaller (and thicker) than the pictures make it seem. I like the overall styling, but I wish the volume knob was on the side. Regarding the sound -- it's passable. The 3" speaker does okay, but sounds more like a "transistor" radio than anything else. It's very clear (with lots of treble) but has zero bass. A deeper sound comes from my Sangean PR-D18 handheld radio...which has an even smaller speaker! I appreciate the direct-entry buttons under the display...which is also big and easy to see. The backlight comes on each time a button is pressed and It's very easy to select a station on any of the three bands. But I haven't tried to set any presets yet. I don't usually do that with radios anyway. And I also appreciate the carry handle. The recording feature is pretty unique. I've certainly never seen that before. I tested it briefly with a thumb drive I had lying around. It works! ... and seems easy to figure out. I can't attest to whether it has recording-length limits or not. But it's a cool feature. Most of my radio listening is done with AM, so I bought it, hoping that it had reasonably good sensitivity on the AM band. I was pleased to see that it actually does. HOWEVER, after plugging it in, and playing with it for awhile, I was disappointed (at first) that most of the out-of-town AM stations I tuned to had a lot of interference, and the reception wasn't very good. FM (as expected) was just the opposite. Normally when I listen to AM stations at 30 miles away and farther, I use a Terk (external) AM antenna, to boost the signal. The radio responded well using that method. Stations that were basically non-existent when I tuned to them, came to life when I put the Terk next to it. (which is what is supposed to happen) The picture I attached shows the radio and the Terk antenna together. So, a day or two passed, and I finally decided to put batteries in it. BINGO!!! The static and interference I was hearing on AM, was gone! This also improved the radio's ability to pick up distant stations :-) I was amazed at the amount of RF NOISE the AC plug caused. So......if you want to use this receiver for AM -- USE IT WITH BATTERIES ONLY! And I would recommend NiMH RECHARGEABLE batteries. (they're available in D size) I'm not much of a shortwave listener, and I actually haven't even been able to find a SW station that the radio will tune to. My house is only a few miles from a "clear channel" 50,000 watt transmitter...so it's only picked up "splatter" (on SW) from that tower. Bottom line; the Retekess seems to be pretty well built, and the antenna (for FM/SW) is a good length. If you don't care about AM distant stations, or AM at all, then the TR629 should be a good fit for you, and you can even use it on AC power.