It's a Dad Radio that works.

Dab radio and FM radio.
It's not overloaded with functions, is quite lightweight, but does a good job at playing the music.
You won't get thunderous bass, but you get a well-balanced sound with enough bass and high end for a very decent sound.
Bear in mind that this unit's battery is £28 - half the price of the radio itself.
I would probably think more about portability and batteries next time I purchase a DAB radio.
If you don't need the battery/portable aspect, great. If it's worth radio cost plus battery cost, then I'm not quite as certain.
Overall, it is a very nice unit - just wish the battery was cheaper.

DAB PURE 1500

I READ THE REVIEW OF SOMEBODY FROM EDINBURGH WHO GAVE IT A BAD REVIEW SAYING THERE WAS NO SIGNAL. I AM LISTENING TO IT JUST NOW. THE SOUND IS VERY CLEAR, THE SIGNAL IS STRONG AND I AM LISTENING IN EDINBURGH. IT IS A LIGHT SMALL RADIO AND FOR ME JUST RIGHT.

Do not buy

Repeating the warning about the poor aerial. All my attempts to get reliable reception have failed in this fairly poor reception area, whereas my other portable DAB radio does OK. Since there is no proper socket to insert a dipole, and wire lengthening has so far been unsuccessful I seem to be stuck. The FM stations that are sometimes weak, e.g. Radio 4, cannot be turned from stereo to mono, either, so it is not viable to abandon DAB for FM. Unless you live in a GOOD area, don't risk it. If Ihad not destroyed the box, I would have sent it back.

Fault

I am not sure how common this is, but the display on the one I bought stopped working after about 3 months. It remained illuminated by light (i.e. blue) but all of the white text disappeared. Nothing else was wrong with it, it could, for example, play and change channels, but as you can imagine it was thereafter unusable. Before that the only other niggle was that the light display was too bright for a bedroom. Ironically after the display stopped working, this problem remained with no way to remedy it by navigating my way to the display options! If it were not for this fault, though it would have been a good radio with a good sound.

Love my pure radio

This portable radio is great. It's light to move, and I've got the rechargeable battery which means you can charge it up overnight and then the battery will last for ages. The sound quality is very good, and it's fantastic to get stations like BBC worldservice, which I can't get on my old radio.

The only minor complaint is that my display always shows the battery at 'full' and then suddenly the radio stops working, but that's not too much of a problem. The battery is good for 3-4 days of use without recharging and I use it a lot.

No"Snooze" facility

Do I mean"Snooze facility"? I want to fall asleep at night listening to the radio and have it turn itself off after about an hour when I'm safely in the land of Nod. Not much to ask - many cheaper radios have this facility, but not the Evoke-1S. How stupid is that? The sound quality is not great, even on DAB, and there is no Tone control on this model to sharpen up the sound so it sounds quite fluffy. I'm returning it to Amazon

A Great Sounding Portable DAB Radio - No Wind Up!

When I bought the radio I thought it looked a bit plasticy and some of the buttons a bit chunky but I have got used to it and its grown on me.

The sound quality is great but the wind up function is only of any practical use when using it in FM mode. So I never use the wind up.

The main feature is that you can fully charge the radio and then use it in DAB mode for up to 6 hours of use. This makes it an ideal bathroom radio or emergency entertainment when you have a power cut (which I experienced in January 2008).

The Freeplay radio is easy to operate which you would expect however, I purchased a different rechargeable radio for the second bathroom and even though it looks great its not obvious what the buttons actually mean on this other radio.

One negative comparison between the two radios is that the Freeplay requires 24 hours of charging to produce 6 hours of DAB radio. While the other radio only requires 5 hours of charge to produce 5 hours of DAB radio. Hence the 4 star rating.

That said, due to the price drop of the Freeplay I have been purchased 2 * additional radios. One to move around the place and act as spare for the bathroom radio and the other one as a gift.

Very good sound and easy to use: great value

My iconic Sony Digicube has woken me every day for three decades. But it turned 30 this year and was promptly killed by my two year-old. I chose this Tempus-1S over other alternatives because it's compact and attractive, with a wide range of features. You can pay more for the XT version but I have to say I couldn't see what the extra money was really for. With this I can plug in my iPod which is great, the alarms are easy to set, the clock dims well at night and, of course, the sound is excellent. The SnoozeHandle on the top is great and it does two extra things: if you have the display set to full screen clock, the handle brings up the radio station and date if touched while the radio is playing; and at night when the radio is off, touching the SnoozeHandle brightens the clock display which could be handy for the partially-sighted. Everything can be adjusted manually anyway - it's very user friendly. The"natural sounds" are a gimmick really. The"birdsong" is a plaintive robin, the"rainfall" and"small waves" make my wife run for the loo and the"thunderstorm" scares my kids. Neat.

Very, Very Good!

This is a great little radio! First it looks fantastic (every one who's seen it likes it), feels exteremly well made and most importantly sounds excellent. It is of course possible to buy the additional speaker for this if you want to get a stereo sound but personally I haven't bothered. The quality and volume of the sound as it is is excellent and one of the radio's key features is how neat it looks on it's own.

The radio can be powered by AC or a separately available rechargeable battery and can receive Digital or FM broadcasts. It also has a line in socket (for plugging an ipod/MP3 player into) and a line out socket for plugging into a hi-fi as well as a headphone socket. There's also more features on it than I had expected e.g., various display options you can get when in digital mode.

I'd read up quite a bit on digital before I plumped for this and what I'd read had stalled me a bit. First that, surprisingly, the digital broadcast was supposed to be of lesser quality than a normal FM broadcast (if you know about bitrates then FM is equivalent to about 192kbps whereas digital is usually at best 128kbps). The other more worrying thing was that although digital radio has been pushed heavily of late, in fact the UK is out on a limb a bit in that we are using an old digital format (DAB) and most of the rest of the world have gone with the newer DAB+ format which allows a higher broadcasting quality. This may not sound too much of a problem but, yes, you've guessed it, the current DAB radios won't be able to pick up DAB+! It's not clear yet though when the government will decide when we go with the new format, considering how many people have now bought radios on the old format!!

I can however still very much recommend that you buy one of these despite the points above because 1.) to me the DAB audio still sounds better than the FM audio (and I'm fussy about these things) and 2.) the digital formats aren't likely to change for some time and until they do you'll enjoy a very good radio!

Great WiFi, Rotten DAB

This WiFi radio sounds great and is both easy to use and very effective at finding and playing the plethora of internet radio stations.
However....The DAB reception is very poor and struggles to be listenable despite being in a site which normally provides excellent reception on other radios. It is portable although I do not know how long the 6 batteries will last. It is great to be able to continue listening in the bathroo, to an internet station!

unsceduled alarms

I like the look and feel of this radio....but,
The first one I bought kept switching on at 4AM even though the alarms were either switched off or scheduled for later in the day.

I replaced the radio within a week and the second radio is doing the same - this time at 2AM!

I am returning the radio and choosing an alternative brand.

Nicely Made Radio For The Garden

Just a short review to add a few observations about this radio:

1. Its certainly nicely made. I have left mine out in the garden and will be doing so to see if it can survive the weather and live up to its its 'Weatherproof' tag;
2. Only 4 preset buttons is a shame. There appears to be space for six, so it makes one wonder why they didn't add a couple more;
3. The sound is good and, so far, the DAB reception has been fine;
4. The rubber feet on the bottom of the unit mean that one can plonk it down on any surface safely;
5. After pressing the Power button, it takes about five seconds for the broadast to come through. My Pure One behaves like this. Strange. My bedroom Tivoli unit comes on virtually instantaneously. I find the"Pure pause" rather irratating but it wouldn't put me off buying another Pure unit.
6. I think Pure could have made the Oasis a bit more compact. It is a bit of a 'brick'.
7. The carrying handle on the top of the unit is very handy;
8. The LCD is virtually impossible to read in sunlight.

I like this DAB unit but it is rather expensive. However, if it survives what the great British summer can throw at it, it should prove to be a worthwhile buy.

Small and easy to use but some reservations

This is a small DAB radio that seems to have all the functionality of larger models. It runs both from the mains via a transformer and on batteries. It has a small but clear display that can show the time, stations, and DAB programme related information simultaneously. Build quality is good and the radio is inexpensive.

On the downside, there are only three presets, the radio on FM does not have any RDS functionality, and it's uses batteries quickly whether on DAB or FM. More of concern for me is that the volume cannot be set particularly high - I wanted a DAB when gardening and washing the car. It doesn't quite have the volume for this. Second, it is not good in poor reception areas. I'm based in a relatively poor DAB area. My built-in car DAB radio works fine. This Sony model struggles a little.

Good sound but a little temperamental....

I've had mine for a few months now. The set up is easy, no probs there. The display is a bit bright for my tastes, BUT the principal flaw would seem to be that every now and again, it cancels its own alarm! Twice this has happened to me - the first time I slept in, but today I was awake, heard it go on and looked at it - and saw it turn the radio off and the display read"alarm cancelled." I've no idea why. I've emailled PURE about it as obviously I have no idea if this is a recurring fault or a faulty machine. It would seem to be an occasional fault (shame because it's an absolutely excellent radio otherwise) but for an alarm clock, a pretty serious one.

PS. Have now had word back from PURE and they say my machine is faulty - so if you have this problem too, get back in touch asap and they'll help you.

First Class product

I have had this now for a week and it is very good indeed. Reception is first class on both FM and DAB. I find all the controls easy to use and with excellent intuitive function. This tiny radio feels anything but insubstantial with a solid feel, a quality matt ruberised rear panel/stand; chromed controls and a brushed aluminium front panel. Have used it plugged into my hi fi; good quality active PC stereo speakers and headphones and it gave me very high quality reception that was entirely free from interference in an area renown for this. The built in speaker performs well for its small size. Battery life is very reasonable and if recharged when still about a quarter full should last for years yet even then the radio could still be used with the mains adaptor that is included.

The lettering on the front panel is not to my taste but then I am a bit fussy about artistic design.

DAB Radio Virgin

I have found pure gold in the hunt for a decent DAB radio in this product. Its stylish, easy to use and the sound quality is wonderfull. It is mains or battery operated , has a sleep timer and is a good weight and size. I am well impressed. The delivery by Amazon was quick and efficient too.

Good reception. poor ergonomics

The reception of this radio is truly excellent - I can carry it around the house without the aerial extended, with hardly any reception problems.

Sound quality is good, as is build quality.

Get a chargepak (you need the C6x, the standard one won't fit) - a set of batteries costs £7.50, so it will very soon pay for itself.

My big gripe is with the ergonomics, which I think are poor.

The twenty presets are not really presets at all, as you can't just press one button and go straight to the station you want. Really what the Pure One offers is a favourite stations list and no presets. To find your station, you have to look at the display, scroll through the list until you find the one you want, and then press the select knob. NOT a quick process! The list doesn't even position itself relative to the station you're on - it always starts at position 1. So for example, if you are using preset 9 and want to go to preset 10, you have to scroll though nine stations to get to preset 10.

The daft thing is, this radio has seven buttons that could have been used for proper one-touch presets, and they have been used for other, less frequently used functions, such as the timer (which I never use), and these buttons are not even in any logical order! Get a grip, Pure, and think about how your radios will actually be used!

This is a very good piece of kit, spoiled by a badly designed and irritating user interface.

Great DAB micro

This is a great unit (I didn't get it through Amazon as their recent change to a new delivery company means nothing ever shows up when it should...or at all...). The only reason it doesn't get 5 stars is because of the sound quality (when playing CDs), which isn't bad, but not great!

Perfect reception on DAB and FM and the DAB record/rewind functions and multiple alarms are great.

The buzz mentioned in a couple of reviews is from the casing vibrating slightly. Not a problem unless the unit's right next to your bed (as it is in my case). I just wedged a bit of folded paper between the casing and the frame to solve it - no buzz any more and no trip to the diy shop to get the rubber washer!

Rubbish

Good things - sounds ok and you can record on it.
Bad things - the controls are slow and frustrating and totally illogical. It's slow - it will take ages to catch up with what you want it to do and then it gets confused. Mine keeps freezing on me and the manual of course doesn't tell you how to reset. Oh and the best thing is that the clock on it is wrong but I can't change it - so when I try to record using timed event it will miss the first couple of minutes. Pure have told me to amend the timed event e.g. for a programme starting at 12 set the time for 11.58!!