Digital radio gets cheaper by the day, but does that mean manufacturers are starting to cut corners? We take a look at Pure Digital's new budget DAB digital radio.
Gone is the wooden casing, the metal speaker grills and the multiple preset buttons on the front. In is a plastic case, a simple design and a host of new features.
That's right, the new model shuns the wooden casing found on the Pure Evoke range in favour for an all white, black or pink facade and in all fairness we think it works.
In use you still get the same features as other DAB digital radios on the market and Pure has displayed the controls around the all important volume knob. Press one of the surrounding buttons - like volume, timer, presets, info, DAB/FM, menu and stations for example - and you the volume knob turns from just being the volume knob into a dial that allows you to whizz through the menu.
It's a nice idea and one that is easy to control and use, although what did confuse us is that turning the dial changes the volume rather than the station like the Pure Evoke digital radio made by the same company. What's more is that there is a dedicated volume button, which seems to be null and void.
As with other digital radios from both pure and other manufacturers the radio offers a three line LCD showing station name, volume, time and signal strength.
You can choose to change the information. Everything from the uber-geeky signal strength you are currently getting to information like phone numbers pumped out by the radio station.
Pure boast that the One is the latest DAB radio to feature two new technologies. Intellitext and textSCAN.
Intellitext gives listeners on-demand access to DAB extended text broadcasts such as the latest sports news, and headlines.
The idea is that the broadcaster sends specially formatted scrolling text, and One categorises and stores it for retrieval at the user's convenience.
In theory is sounds great, however currently TalkSport is the only radio station offering the system and even then are you really going to want to read a headline on a single line LCD screen that offers 16 characters "that is enough for n". To get around this, the second "New" technology is textSCAN that, you guessed it, lets listeners pause and control scrolling text.
Pitching it directly at the kitchen and bedroom market, the Pure One also includes kitchen and sleep timers. Both take about a second to set and are useful if you aren't planning on burning dinner.
Other features include a USB socket so you can upgrade the firmware at a later date and 20 combined DAB and FM presets.
The Pure One ships with a AC charger, but can take 6 C-Cell batteries or Pure's rechargeable ChargePAK battery pack.
Our quick take
So what's the catch? Well the single speaker certainly isn't as good as the one found on the company's Evoke range, but then at ?70 cheaper it's not surprising.
The Pure One is a great little DAB digital radio for the kitchen or the beach hut this summer.
The move to a plastic case isn't really an issue as the Pure One is extremely well made rather than something that would cut your fingers and the fact that it's a penny under ?50 means this will certainly appeal to a much wider audience rather than the John Lewis brigade who like the wooden casings so much.
We like it.
Pure Digital One DAB Digital Radio - EXCLUSIVE - 4.5 / 5
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To recap
The Pure One is a great little DAB digital radio for the kitchen or the beach hut this summer