Makita MR007GZ

Charger not build in... shame – Will not charge battery... thought i have upgraded but i have downgraded instead...

Always makita – As a house painter or tradie. I always need music to my ears. I use to have makita mr007gz. It never disappointed me or other painter. Thanks for this amazing radio.

Nice Sound – This unit was received as a replacement for a DMR108 that was faulty and not being made anymore which meant I had to have something different and this was it. I must compliment Makita for trying hard to make up for my time and bad experience with the DMR108 by replacing it with a unit worth almost twice as much. Thank you. The MR007GZ is a nice unit. It has 3 speakers, 1 being a subwoofer mounted underneath and 1 speaker each side per the usual for the Makita radio's.

The sound is quite good especially because of the subwoofer and an equaliser. The equaliser has pre-sets or you can customise your own settings. I use the rock pre-set. Nice bass, so no tinny sound, great.

The Makita radio's are not high powered as such, they make enough sound but are not Boom Boxes so to speak. This unit is not too bad, it does ok for loudness or volume if you prefer.

The unit has Bluetooth, FM/AM/DAB+ radio and an Aux input.

Personally I have not listened to radio of any kind for many, many years now because the constant assault on my senses by advertising and big mouth, low IQ DJ's was doing my head in, so its Bluetooth for me (or the Aux input).

Here is where Makita could have scored well simply by adding a USB input for a memory stick. Now my entire collection can be plugged in and my phone is completely freed up for phone things. Maybe next generation? I guess they reckon it's covered by the Aux input and using an MP3 player but who has them anymore?

So far everything has been pretty good but there is 1 thing I don't like about the unit, the tiny clock, which also has another problem which is actually showing the time.

For a jobsite radio I would of thought a designer might have realised that a worker would appreciate a clock he can see from across the room, say like a chippy on a house site. On the DMR108 you could, you cannot on this unit, you have to put your face right up against the small screen to see the roughly 5mm high numbers which don't show the time, well actually it does, 12.00am all day, every day, oh unless you use the correct FM radio station. The unit sets the time from an FM (or DAB) radio station that broadcasts the time, not all of them do, not here in my neck of the woods anyway, so if you only use the Aux input or Bluetooth - no time for you! (No you cannot set it yourself). Also when you turn the unit off it loses any time that may have been set (by tuning into the particularly correct FM station) so you have to do it again next time you turn the unit on! Really? Yes Really! Yes even with a battery in!

I guess I can live with it but I miss my roughly 30mm high numbers from the DMR108 clock that I could actually set the time myself and it remembered it because it had 2 AA batteries to keep the time and I could see the clock from across the room, hey! Only half hour to knock off, you beauty!

All in all it is a very nice unit with just the clock letting it down in my opinion.

Keeping that in mind I'm sure you would be very happy with the unit if you decided to buy one, the overall sound with the subwoofer is great.