I just gave it a shot. Yes you can crank it to charge up the internal rechargable batteries. The crank worked pretty well. After cranking for a minute or so the radio ran fine as did the flashlight. There is an outside LED indicator light that indicates if you are cranking fast enough btw.

I did not measure the time of how long the radio would run for each minute of cranking but if I get the chance I will check that out and post in this thread. I also do not know how long the rechargable batteries will hold a charge once they are (crank) charged up

The radio also has a place so you can plug in a cord to charge the internal rechargable batteries ... but the connectors they provided with the radio only fit the connection that takes power OUT of the unit (ie: for charging a cell phone), they did NOT provide the connector needed to charge up the rechargable batteries. (The input and output voltage is that of a standard phone charger fwiw).

Remember this unit also holds 3 regular AA batteries inside so normally you wouldn't need to crank it at all unless those batteries were dead and you didn't have any others to put into it.

If you don't have a battery powered transistor radio for both AM/FM and Weather Radio Frequencies this is a good reasonably priced option imo.