Tech review: The Livio Radio

Product: The Livio Radio, an Internet radio stereo featuring Pandora radio.

Features: Using an Internet connection (Wi-Fi or Ethernet cable), allows you to access your Pandora Internet radio account and more than 11,000 free Internet radio stations. Has remote control, output to connect to home stereo and auxiliary input to connect an mp3 or CD player.

Price: $179.99

Ups: Pandora Internet radio is a free service that allows you to create your own radio stations customized to your musical preferences. It has more than 20 million registered users. Using thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons, you teach it what music you like. The Livio can tap into that account and uses those same thumbs up and down buttons, both on the radio and the remote. When you use Pandora, it'll show the name of the song, artist and album.

It's easy to find your hometown stations by just searching by location and genre -- or discover new stations from around the world. Save a list of your favorite stations or program them (including Pandora stations) into the remote's five shortcut keys.

If you lose the remote, no worries -- you can still control the radio without it.

Downs: Not much negative to say about it, except that sometimes I'll notice a delay when trying to give a thumbs up or down to songs on my Pandora account. And it needs to be plugged in to work, so no taking it to the beach.

Bottom line: If you're looking for a stereo and you love Pandora, then this is for you. And the ability to hook it up to an mp3 player or CD player makes it more than just a fancy way to access Internet radio stations.

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