Pure ONE DAB Radio 

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Pure One DAB/FM Radio

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The Pure One DAB radio is 21x14x7cm and the version I saw came in a creamy white colour. I understand it is also available in a TalkSport (black) version from Amazon at £49.99. I also see from the Pure website there is a shocking pink version available.

It has an 75cm 8 piece rod aerial that extends from the top of the unit and retracts into a recess. On the face towards the right side is a 5x1.5cm three line LCD display and below this are seven clearly marked silvered buttons with a large silvered button in the centre. Should you need any assistance this is available in the manual. Below the buttons is the 'ONE' name and to the right of this the all important on/off switch labelled Standby. The left half of the front is taken by the speaker.

See also: DAB Radios

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The rear has drop down door where you can insert batteries or the optional ChargePAK, should you use the unit a lot away from mains power the £29.95 likely price of the ChargePAK would soon be recouped as it recharges while in use from the mains. If you use it mainly on the mains 6x'C' cells can be used for the occasional use on batteries. To the left of the drop down door is the DC input from the mains adapter.

The right side has mini USB and headphone socket.

Apart from the small LED display it looks rather like a standard FM radio that may tend to live in a kitchen. It has a clock on the display and along with all the information it is easy to read, should you wish you can have a larger clock display taking all three lines but enabling it to be read far further away.

One of the buttons is marked 'Timer' and apart from it's ability to be a sleep timer it can also be used to time processes such as cooking times etc.

On first switch on a scan on the DAB band is immediately undertaken and in my case it found 51 stations. However I do live in a good DAB reception area so why not check www.ukdigitalradio.co.uk for likely reception in your area, new DAB transmitters are added often so even if your area was poorly served say last year you may get good reception now. I have just had a release about a new transmitter covering the Durham area.

With 51 stations presets are important and you have 20 available although the slightly notched tuning wheel make station changes easy.

The presets are far more important on the FM band where first you will hear static unless your area has a station right at the lower end of the waveband. Each notch tunes up .05 of a MHz so to get from 87.50 to 100+ will take a while. Once you have found a station you like save it - full details in the manual - and you will instantly be able to use it on from then on. Again like DAB you have 20 presets available.

For part of the review I used the optional ChargePAK and although the claim is for 'around 20 hours' my tests were certainly well short of that and run down towards the end was very quick from two bars of battery life on the display to switch off was within a few minutes of use.

Perhaps ordinary 'C' cell rechargeable units would work but as I only have AA and AAA I could not test this. Anyhow this assessment is of the DAB only and not the ChargePAK that only arrived well into the testing period.

I found this a perfectly acceptable DAB and FM radio from a well known name in DAB and it is certainly towards the lower end of the price spectrum for Pure. This is still very new so I have no links for the cream white or shocking pink versions.