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The Roberts Sound 200 measures 35x27x11cm, the last figure increases by 60cm when the six piece rod aerial is fully vertically extended from the back.

You can record to SD Card and USB Stick. You can record from DAB, FM and CD as well or of course listen to them. It also has a dock so you can throw your iPod or iPhone into the equation mentioned for recording or listening.

See also: iPod docking stations

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So plug it into the mains lift the rod aerial and tune into the 60 odd DAB stations available, very early on the front display changes to the correct time and date.

There are only a few DAB units around that can record and these up till now have only been able to record to SD Cards so I was very interested to investigate the ability to record to USB Stick, insert either the SD Card or USB Stick into their slots in the rear and press the record button and until the card/stick reaches capacity or you manually stop the recording 128mbps MP3 recordings will be made. I was however left rather deflated as it only records live. This unit has alarms and sleep timers so why not include the ability to record in your absence?

For those without a computer then the ability to record onto card/stick from CD might be of interest but it is again a manual track by track routine unless of course you want a single file but of course its all in real time mode.

There is of course a small remote control which duplicates a lot of the controls from the top of the unit so saving you rising from your chair. There are nine touch buttons on the top and a large knob that doubles as volume and on/off. Behind these is the iPod or iPhone dock.

The rear has SD Card slot, USB socket, separate USB input for software upgrades, Auxiliary input and Headphone/Earbud outlet. The six piece rod aerial lives collapsed along the back when not in use and finally the mains input.

The front has the 6.8x2.7cm four line display. When in standby the top two lines display a digital clock and the bottom line displays the date in day, date month, year format. Below this is the slot CD and on the right side CD loaded indicator and infra red sensor for the eleven button remote control.

In use the display normally still shows the clock but either side a range of small icons according to which mode you are in.

In DAB mode the top two lines are the time the third line the station you are tuned to and then you have a choice of five items for the bottom line, Scrolling Text, Programme Type, Multiplex Name, Date or Channel and Frequency.

In FM much the same layout some FM station will change from the frequency to the station name some remain as a frequency. Here I see a use for the ten presets for each of FM and DAB as remembering a frequency is not always easy.

For CD’s you can only play full size 12cm CDs but it does have the ability to play not only purchased CDs but also CDs of MP3/WMA format that contain up to 511 files and these can be split in up to 99 folders, I think at 128mbps I remember managing to store around 20 hours of music on a single CD. It can of course also play SD Cards and Memory Sticks with files in either format.

A nice unit let down by its inability to carry out timed recordings. It is available from link below for £248.24

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008MZ2YZY?ie=UTF8&tag=gadge0a-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634