Rhino Powerplus Wind-up Radio Full Review
Posted: 09 April 2008 by Chris Haslam
At just under £25 and one of the cheapest on the market, the Rhino Powerplus is a bargain of a wind-up radio. Great news for you eco sceptics, who can't face parting with £40 for an eco analogue radio when there are DAB digitals available for less.
As the name suggests, the Rhino is meant to be a tough cookie, ready to soak up knocks and bangs. In reality, we thought it was a little on the weedy side. Yes, it is covered in a stealth black rubbery plastic coating, but it just didn't appear shock-proof or especially hard at all. It undoubtedly looks like a big, tough, chuck-it-in-the-transit-van sort of radio -- especially with the carry handle suggesting heavyweight design -- but it's only 17 x 15 x 6cm and the handle makes it look more clutch bag than builder's mate.
Macho-ness aside, the controls are sensibly laid out, you get a choice of manually tuned FM and AM stations, and there's a long telescopic aerial plus a single LED light for seeing (only short distances) in the dark.
Like most wind-up designs you can plug it into the mains with the AC adaptor, use three AA batteries or the onboard battery and dynamo winder. According to the blurb on the John Lewis website (and other retailers that stock it) a 60-second charge will yield 20 minutes of listening time. Compared to other wind-ups, like the Freeplay Summit (30 seconds winding for 30 minutes of radio) or the Eton FR350 (30 seconds of winding for an hour of play time), that doesn't sound too promising. But in practice we got more music for our muscle and had 40 minutes of playback for our minute of winding. It still isn't as efficient as can be, but then again it doesn't take much effort to keep the radio playing.
According to the manufacturer, a 20-minute wind will fully charge the battery and give 20 hours of playback. Now, our wrists couldn't handle winding for that long, so we can't tell you if the claim pans out, but it'd be pretty impressive if it does. We just don't think it's worth the effort when you can just top-up as you go instead of risking chronic repetitive strain injury.
As for ethics and accreditation, the Rhino's manufacturer, Tango Group Limited, holds both ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 for standards in sound environmental practice and business, plus the ROHS certification on hazardous materials, all of which is the norm for consumer electronics. Tango's MD told us he'd visited the factory and found conditions to be good, which we were pleased to hear.
The only other green info we could find out is that Tango uses only recycled packaging for shipping and shredding, and that it produces its own packaging pulp. Other than that, the Rhino's green points really only come from the fact that it's a wind-up, and doesn't need to be plugged in.
Aside from the design, the Rhino Powerplus is a decent bit of tech. Its no-frills FM/AM radio isn't going to wow with clever tricks or flashy looks but we're confident it'll give years of electricity-free entertainment without breaking the bank.
Quality
Value
Ethics
Green
