Shortwave Pocket Rocket, great value

Once I spent $ 360 on a fancy name-brand pocket shortwave radio, only to be disappointed by the mechanical ruggedness of the unit. It broke, and I threw it away because fixing an 8 year old radio didn't seem to make any sense.

Yet, I still wanted something I could take hiking or biking. The Grundig Mini World seems to fit this requirement quite nicely.

I would say for less than 10% of the cost of my former fancy expensive pocket shortwave radio I get 80% of the performance. It performs well on AM / FM, and the designers were wise to adequately spread out the shortwave spectrum into 6 different bands, in order to slow down the tuning rate. You can hear the major powerhouse shortwave broadcast stations, but this is not the radio you want if you want to make a hobby out of shortwave listening. I mean, a Swiss Army Knife will cut food, but if you want to be a chef, you've got to have real knives, OK ?

FM sound is really nice when using the included earbud headphones.

Weird thing is: the controls are BACKWARDS. Frequency increases right to left; volume increases by moving the volume control downward. I don't get it. Not a major gripe, just mildly bewildering.