XHDATA D-808 Radio - Some Observations On Usability

I recently purchased a XHDATA D-808 World Band radio.  It's generating a fair amount of "buzz" in the shortwave listening community due to its low cost (less than $70 US) and an impressive feature list:

• Frequency coverage - longwave, mediumwave AM, shortwave WITH SSB and covering the "full" shortwave range, FM, and air band.  
• Small size (just about pocket-size)
• 500 memories (100 for each of the bands)
• FM RDS capability
• Helpful tuning features including direct frequency entry, a variable "speed" tuning knob, a separate fine-tuning "wheel", up/down slewing buttons
• External antenna jack

Also of note, unlike the nearly identical Digitech AR-1780, the D-808 ships with a soft faux-leather pouch, external wire antenna, rechargeable battery, and USB cable for charging, and at half the price of the AR-1780.

Further, the radio performs fairly well for a set of such a low price.  While I don't find performance on any band to be stellar, the D-808 certainly is capable of pulling in stations, especially with a suitable external antenna for SW and SW/SSB use.

This is not intended to be a full review of the radio; rather I wanted to share some observations on the usability factors, in particular those which I find to be lacking.  For some reason, very few radio reviewers seem to spend any time on ergonomics, or on the actual implementation of the controls that have to be used to operate the device.  Personally I find these things to be key to my long-term enjoyment of a radio, and strongly impact the likelihood that I will want to use a radio on a day-to-day basis.  I am more likely to USE and ENJOY a radio that is easy to tune, has decent auto-scanning capabilities, a sane memory preset scheme, etc. even if the radio isn't quite as strong a performer on every band.

The first thing I want to note is that the D-808 was implemented with buttons that are flush with the front of the case, and which require very firm presses to engage.  Combined with their small size and cramped arrangement, pressing them is simply uncomfortable.  My radio usually sits on a plastic picnic-style table and the radio slides around all over the table when I try to press buttons unless I hold onto it with the other hand.  This is a poor design decision that negatively impacts using this radio, especially as other design issues pretty much require a LOT of button pressing - and I'll come back to it again and again.

A nice feature of this radio is that is actually has a tuning knob, often absent from cheaper shortwave portables.  But this one has strong "stops" so it doesn't turning smoothly - each turn requires you to apply enough force to overcome the friction.  And the radio mutes with every turn, so it's pretty miserable for a casual session of "tuning around" a band.

As is the case with nearly all portable digital radios, the numeric keypad does double duty allowing entry of frequencies or access to memories.  On the D-808, the radio is always in a mode where the default action of pressing a number button is to call up a memory location.  Several negative (to my way of thinking) consequences arise as a result:

• Because every keypress instantly pulls up a memory, the memory "pages" or banks must be limited to 10 memories apiece.  So if you wanted to program in all the MWARA frequencies, you would have to split these over many memory pages.  Then to tune through them you have to do extra keypresses to get from page to page.
• In order to directly enter a frequency you have to first press a "freq" button since otherwise pressing the button would tune a preset station.  As with most shortwave radios you also have to press the freq button AGAIN at the end of any entry that doesn't use up all the available digits (basically any SW frequency under 10000). These extra button presses, combined with the poor button design (see above) makes frequency entry a laborious process.

There are of course other ways to tune; one helpful feature allows the D-808 to auto-tune-and-store frequencies in a band.  Here again, there are implementation issues - 

• The radio seems to have a high threshold for recognizing a signal, so it "finds" far fewer frequencies than it can actually tune. To be really clear on that point, I can tune frequencies manually that are perfectly listenable but the D-808 doesn't find them when auto-tuning.  I have compared this function with a number of other portables and ALL of them find more frequencies than the D-808.  Note, the same inability to recognize a listenable frequency while scanning also affects scanning with the slewing buttons.
• If you do happen to find a bunch of frequencies, they will be stored across multiple pages (see above issues with the small page size).
• The auto-tuned frequencies are always stored starting in page 0 preset 0 for the chosen band and work up from there, so if you want to manually program memories, you need to put them on a high page.  There is no option to have found frequencies added to the existing list, it always overwrites. 

One final note on frequency memories - there is no way to access (tune) a preset other than pressing the associated key on the number pad (possibly AFTER doing additional keypresses to pull up the correct page).  You can't scan through a bank of stored frequencies.  You can't move from one to the next with the slewing buttons, nor with the tuning knob.  As with everything else requiring the use of button presses on this radio, this is a pain.

As for performance, despite many reviews giving the D-808 high marks, I find it to be only average, but it's also hard to gauge due to the usability impediments I've been describing.  For example, how do you measure shortwave performance?  Unless you have bench test equipment, you mainly test it by seeing how many stations you can pick up under various conditions (on the whip, with some kind of external antenna, indoors vs. outdoors, different times of day, etc.) and listening to them.  But consider:

• Manual band-scanning sucks on this radio - the tuning knob is not comfortable for a long session moving through a band and the muting is bad
• Using either the slewing/scanning buttons or the auto-tuning, the radio seems to require such strong signals that it finds very few stations - even when you KNOW the signal is there and you KNOW the D-808 is capable of tuning it
• Auto-tuning stations and having them stored results in the frustrating experience of pressing buttons to step through them and having to switch pages

In short, in order to see what I can pick up with this radio I'm mostly spending time looking at EIBI schedules or the like, trying to figure out what ought to be tunable, and manually entering frequency after frequency.  It's very hard to compare how well this radio performs next to a radio that is much easier to use, like various models from Tecsun and Eton/Grundig.  

The end result of all these observations is that I'm again looking for a radio that hits closer to my sweet spot for features, performance and usability.  The D-808 will likely be the next radio I list on E-bay.

Comparing the Digitech AR1780 to the XHDATA D-808

12/06/18 - this post has been updated to include more current information about pricing and availability - which affect the value proposition - and to correct a couple of factual errors.

Shortwave enthusiasts learn this lesson very early - all shortwave radios are the culmination of a combination of compromises.  Price, size/portability, reliability, frequency coverage, features, and vendor support all vary from one make and model to the next.  Further, putting a value on a number of these items is a subjective process - a radio's count of memories is a fixed number, but how important that number is varies from person to person.

Not surprisingly, we tend to group radios with similar sets of features, sizes, and prices into groups and compare them to one another.  But on occasion the shortwave industry presents us with virtually identical models from different brands or companies.  Sometimes these are manufactured in the same place by the same people and just branded differently.  And you'd expect those devices to really and truly be "the same".

Recently it was noted that the new XHDATA D-808 radio appeared to be identical to the Digitech AR-1780.  Both radios are of interest due to the following items on the set of scales mentioned above:

• Frequency coverage is good - broad coverage of the shortwave band, longwave, mediumwave AM, FM broadcast band, and AIR band (a small range of VHF frequencies used by airports and airlines)
• Single Sideband (SSB) capability - important for listening to Hams and some utility broadcasts
• Small form factor
• Built-in whip antenna and external antenna jack
• Built-in battery charger
• Relatively low prices (see below)

There are also a couple of items that are not so hot - one is from a company (Digitech) that has a decidedly low reputation, the other from a company most of us here in the states never heard of (XHDATA).  And speaking of "here in the states", both radios have to be ordered from overseas suppliers and shipped to the US.

It isn't my intention to do a full review of either set here, though - but rather to list the similarities and differences.  And the similarities are STRONG:

• Nearly identical size, shape and weight (the weight WITH BATTERIES is identical, while the D-808 is slightly larger in a couple of dimensions)
• Identical placement and labeling of buttons, knobs, and jacks on the radios with only a couple of exceptions, explained below
• The built-in whips are the same size, same length and number of elements
• The radios seem to use identical circuitry / DSP chips and have identical functions (indeed the manuals, both really slim and not too informative, are word-for-word the same)
• As you would expect the display readouts are identical save for the backlight color

But there ARE differences:

• The AR-1780 runs about $125 US plus shipping (I got mine on sale so that was about what I paid including shipping).  The D-808 runs about $69 US, including shipping (I got mine on sale at $49 including shipping).  This difference alone is driving a LOT of interest in the D-808 Over time the price of the D-808 has gone up considerably since the original post.  It is no longer possible to purchase direct from China.  You can only get it through a few E-bay sellers who are routing it through Israel.  With shipping it runs anywhere from $120 to $140.  The E-bay sellers of the AR-1780 have taken to jacking up shipping prices so that radio is even more expensive.  However if you purchase the AR-1780 through the US web site of Jaycar, you can get it for a decent price and shipping only adds about $15.
• Aside from the radio itself, the AR-1780 ships with the manual, and...nothing else.  No batteries, no charging cables or devices, no earbuds, no external antenna, and no carrying case.  I'll come back to the lack of any power supply of any kind shortly.  By contrast, the D-808 ships with a soft faux-leather carrying pouch, a rechargeable battery, a USB charging cable, and a wire antenna that can be plugged into the available jack on the radio.  Given that the radio is already half the price of the AR-1780, these extras create an even stronger  a slight advantage for the D-808.
• The AR-1780 uses 4 AA cells, and does have circuitry to charge Ni-MH batteries inside the unit.  It does not come with any batteries - I have plenty of Sanyo Eneloops so that's not such a big issue - but the radio also does not include a charger and/or charging cable.  This is a pain since the AR-1780 uses an odd 7V charger.  Again, I use an external charger for my Eneloops.  In short, the fact that the unit can theoretically be run by an external power source and charge batteries inside is pretty much moot for the average buyer.  Compare this to the D-808, which uses a larger 18650 Li-Ion cell, and uses a standard micro-USB port to to charge.  The radio even ships with a micro-USB cable - not that you probably don't already have a bunch of them laying around, but it's nice to have it included.  You can charge this off an available computer port or wall-wart or whatever you have that can charge USB.   The different charger options for these radios results in one of the only real physical differences between the radios which is the power jack.
• The power button itself is located in a different spot on each radio - just to the left of the display on the AR-1780, just to the right on the D-808
• The buttons used on these radios are different, and this is the first downside for the D-808.  On the AR-1780 they are raised and very tactile.  On the D-808 they are flush with the case making them somewhat more of a pain to press (and impossible to to use the radio by feel - these are simple enough radios you could probably learn to operate the AR-1780 in the dark, but with flush buttons on the D-808 that would be a non-starter).
• The black case used on the AR-1780 shows the silk-screened labels (some of which uses a dark orange ink in places) on the buttons and the case itself clearly.  The D-808 uses identical colors but on a grey case and the reddish orange labeling is super hard to read unless you hold the radio at an odd angle.  Advantage here goes to the AR-1780.
• The screens used different color back-lighting - amber on the AR-1780, blueish-white on the D-808.  

So - weighing pros and cons, the radios are pretty much identical in terms of form and function and features with a slight usability edge to the AR-1780 based on easier to feel and press buttons and easier to read silk-screened labeling.  

The D-808 is a MUCH somewhat better VALUE proposition based on having identical features and performance and including the battery, charging cable, external wire antenna, and carrying pouch, for HALF the same price of the AR-1780.  

What else?  Here are some TOTALLY SUBJECTIVE observations....

• I prefer the black case of the AR-1780 to the grey used by the D-808.
• I prefer the raised buttons on the AR-1780 to the flush ones on the D-808.
• For some reason the AR-1780 *feels* like it weighs more (and mentally this equates to feeling more solidly built) than the D-808, even though I have weighed them both at 11.5 ounces including their batteries.  I think this is because the AR-1780 is very slightly smaller in a couple of dimensions so having the same weight in a little smaller packages makes it denser.
• The first few hours of playing with the D-808 I was sure it was defective - it seemed to struggle to pick up the same stations as the AR-1780, the signal strength displays were reading way lower, and I was thinking about boxing it up and contacting the seller to return it.  But I removed the battery for a while, put it back in, and it has been perfect (compared to the AR-1780) ever since. 
• Likewise the audio quality of the D-808 seemed much worse at first, but I think I may have had different bandwidth settings chosen.  At any rate I no longer notice any difference.

Recommendation - I find ergonomics make a huge difference to my enjoyment of SWLing.  If a radio is a pin in the rear to use, I just won't  use it, no matter how it performs.  I think the AR-1780 has the edge here and it's the one I kept out of the two radios.  

Final note - neither of these radios would get a strong recommendation from me regardless of price.  They are both decent performers but the memories are a pain in the rear to program and to access, entering frequencies is also a pain, and there are just better choices out there (especially for the price point).  See the TECSUN PL-660/680 to understand what I mean.