Why bother tuning in your local radio stations when you can listen to Internet radio from around the world? However, some spots don’t exactly lend themselves to having a full fledged computer to act as an Internet radio. Vtech aimed to solve that problem with the Vtech IS9181, their Wi-Fi Internet radio. Gadgetell tested it out to see if it is worth your hard earned money.

The other day, I got a chance to talk to Slacker (makers of the portable radio player, Slacker G2). I thought it was a pretty cool device and asked since it was wireless already, why not make the whole thing wireless by adding Bluetooth? The Slacker spokesperson nodded and told me that he could not tell me about that, but to keep an eye out for new developments. When I pressed him to see if they would do Bluetooth, he responded with a laugh and said he couldn’t say anything now.

He then explained how Bluetooth compresses audio and there may be quality issues for other music players when they try to use Bluetooth. The Slacker spokesperson told me that since Slacker uses AAC V2 compression, Bluetooth may be able to handle Slacker’s music without any loss of quality. This explanation on how the Slacker G2 could take advantage of Bluetooth coupled with the knowing laughs of the spokesperson convinced me that Bluetooth is coming.