Intelligent design, abysmal reception

As a bicycle commuter I've been looking for quite a while for the ideal radio to use while riding. Seeing Sony's SRF-HM10 recently in the store had me hoping I'd found it, but it turns out I was disappointed again.

My current - and so far - best solution is Sony's SRF-M85V radio with Shure's e2c earbuds. The sound insulation the e2c earbuds provide is simply unmatched by anything else I've seen elsewhere, including the HM10's earbuds, which unfortunately just don't go deep enough to make a tight seal.

But the biggest disappointment of the HM10 is its radio reception that is probably the worst in the line of Sony's S2 sports radios. In most pocket radios the headphone cord doubles as the FM antenna and so I thought that the HM10 must have a more advanced antenna system and/or radio receiver to make up for the lack of a long headphone cord. But this is not the case. This becomes painfully apparent when holding the hand close to the receiver when tuned in to a weak radio station. This alone improves radio reception, so your hand acts as the antenna.

Other than that, the controls are fairly straightforward. Channel preset up-down buttons that double as tuning controls, volume up-down buttons, bass boost and power button with Local and DX setting are fairly easy to learn and discern, since when wearing the radio all controls are behind your head. Wearing the radio seems comfortable, although I didn't try for long periods of time or in a high impact sports activity.

Also, I don't understand why a station scan isn't featured, but this seems to be no different than from the other S2 radios from Sony.

Unlike the description the radio is for FM reception only (no AM, no Weather band, and certainly no TV band) and provides for 15 FM station presets. A nice detail is that if you program fewer than 15 stations into the radio you don't have to cycle through all the unused slots when going from your last to your first station preset.

If it wasn't for the unacceptable reception capabilities and haphazard earbuds, that don't really seal very well, this would be a killer product.

So, unless you only want to listen to the strongest stations in your area, don't waste your money.