In this review, I will be taking a look at RadioBee, an Internet Radio player for your Blackberry,
Introduction
Radiobee is an internet radio player that allows you to stream shoutcast radio stations on your Blackberry. It is an alternative to Slacker, another internet radio player for Blackberry phones. It is also powered by a Shoutcast engine and the developers claim that it has a sound engine with no delays. So basically if you have a fast data connection that is capable of comfortably streaming internet radio, you should not have any problems. The minimum requirements to run Radiobee is a Blackberry phone running Blackberry OS 4.3 or higher.
Main Interface
The main interface of the application allows you to search for radio stations, which you can sort based on their reliability rating and playing rating. You can also choose radio stations based on your favorites, genre and station names. The proprietary algorithm in the application turns up decent results based on the search terms you use as well. A Hot picks option also shows you some popular stations to get you started. Stations that you listen to often can be added to a favorite list. You can also manually add a station by entering its URL.
The application supports both Shoucast and Icecast streams which gives you a lot of variety for the radio stations you can choose. While the main screen shows the song name and artist during playback.
Additional features
Radiobee can run in the background allowing you to perform additional tasks while the application is playing a radio stream. Another useful feature is the applications ability to stream audio in bluetooth stereo mode. You can pair it with your car stereo or a wireless headset and listen to the music.
The volume buttons and trackball on your Blackberry can be used with the application. The data connections supported for internet radio streaming are Wi-fi and BES.
Conclusion
Radiobee is a functional internet radio player with a very basic user interface. It does not have too much eye candy but it gets the job done. Radiobee is priced reasonably at 9.95 USD. You do not have to pay to access the radio stations after purchasing this application as Shoutcast stations are free to access. The Shoutcast directory includes a large variety of radio stations which number more than 75000 so you will never run out of choices.