Hands-on with the Tangent Quattro Internet radio

We've spent the last few days playing with Tangent's Quattro -- a Wi-Fi-enabled Internet radio -- and we've had a blast. It's amazing how long you can spend browsing radio stations from Japan, Kazakhstan and Egypt when something makes it so utterly simple. Here's a big shout-out to the guys at Radio Vucjak from Bosnia, our new early-morning favourite.

The £170 Quattro is a gorgeous little tabletop beast, encased in wood, with a single driver built into the top. A bunch of controls sit on the front along with a two-line LCD display. Along with FM reception, the system pulls Internet radio listings from the Reciva portal, and sorts stations by location or genre. But you could also browse to, say, Japan's listing, and sort those stations further by selecting a genre.

There's also some on-demand functionality. If you browse the UK's listings, find the BBC and hit up Radio 1, you can choose to listen to The Chris Moyles Show live, or listen to any show from the previous week (including all the music). Pretty cool, huh?

So far we're impressed, though we've had to patch in using Ethernet, as our company Wi-Fi requires a Web-based login. We're yet to test how well it'll wake us up to our favourite Afghani-centric breakfast show, but we'll keep you duly posted. Expect our full review very soon. -Nate 'all about Radio Japan' Lanxon

Update: Read our full Tangent Quattro review here.