View Quest portable internet radio

The basics

The View Quest is the smallest internet radio on the market. Weighing in at just 160g and boasting 15 hours playback from its rechargeable battery, you can truly take a world of radio with you wherever you go – as the name suggests, it’ll hook you up anywhere there’s a Wi-Fi hotspot.

The good

The View Quest’s award-winning design ticks all the portable-gadget boxes: it’s small (72.9x125.1x23.1mm), light (60g) and wonderfully sleek. The interface is simple to use, with a clear LCD display and an intuitive scrollwheel. You can search radio programmes by country or genre.

Hooking it up to WiFi is a doodle – if it’s a protected network then it’ll remember the password one input. Once connected, you’ll be able to rock out to over 12,000 global internet stations, as well as tune in to the BBC’s Listen Again service for anything you may have missed from Auntie.

Considering its size, the built-in speaker still manages to pack a punch and there’s a 3.5mm headphone socket if you want to groove out to Nigerian funk, Latin salsa or German jazz in privacy.

The bad

Sometimes connectivity can be patchy, via the vTuner database, with some BBC streams getting interrupted.

The bottom line

A truly innovative little gadget, the View Quest lets you carry the entire world of radio in your pocket. Minor niggles aside, this is a great piece of kit for any radio lover.