Pure Digital ONE

Author's product rating:   

Radio Quality	Excellent
Sound & Volume	Excellent
Range of Features	Excellent
Durability	Excellent
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Girly pink, so cute !   (Other colours available ! )  Easy to use .
Disadvantages:	I don't think so .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I just love my new digital radio. It's hot, it's pink, and it rocks! (it even has a pink box!) Now come on, don't let that put you off reading the rest of this review... It is also available in black or white and looks very sleek in those colours. As Pure tells you on the box, it's "the radio for everyone".

I was eager to purchase a radio for my kitchen. I don't know why I didn't have one in there already. The time had come for me to get some company to help me with my kitchen chores. I suppose I could only stand so much of my own beautiful singing voice. The only way forward for me was a spanking new digital radio, so off I trot to John Lewis.

A vast array of digital radios to choose from in good old John Lewis. Some reduced in price, but bulky looking, some pretty and retro looking but still quite expensive, and this little shiny pink beauty before me giving me a girly wink. Ooooooh, look husband, a pink one!!! I had a good look at all the others, but got drawn back to the fuschia pink Pure ONE for my taste. It sounded clear, it had 20 station presets, was nice and compact, and most of all was the least expensive on the shelf. Oh, and it was pink. The black or white option didn't do it for me!

One minute, and £49.95 later I had my newest prized posession under my arm and headed off home for a dance about in my kitchen.

Ease of use

Before I go into specific details, I'd like you to know how incredibly easy this little radio is to use. I'm not one for reading instructions before fiddling with new gadgets, so I got it home, plugged it into the mains, twiddled the knobs and switches, and Bob's yer Uncle, my music machine came to life and I boogied around the kitchen with the children all afternoon! (Bang goes the Sunday lunch!) Well, that was the basics uncovered such as switching on, finding the stations, volume and reading the scrolling text. Blow me, if it doesn't even get the time for you!

What does it look like?

Well, as you can see from the picture, it's solid colour (in my case, pink), plastic, with white writing, silver effect buttons and knobs and a white on/off switch. The buttons are only need a soft touch with a satisfying 'pip', you can have control. I'm really pleased with the neat size and shape of the unit. The telescopic aerial fits neatly into the hollow in the top of the radio when not in use. For my kitchen it's ideal, measuring 6.5cm depth, 14cm height, 21cm width. It's great for a portable radio and you could easily take it from place to place without effort. Some other radios I saw looked extremely bulky and I'd have had more of a problem positioning then in my room.

In the box:

Apart from the radio and mains power adaptor, there's the instruction booklet and a quick start leaflet (for those like me who want to swich on immediately!) There's also a booklet of all the products in the Pure range, inviting you to "meet the family". There's a leaflet with a "chance to win your money back", and a card with your serial number on to register your radio with Pure. I decided to register mine online and it was extremely simple. You can also choose to buy a ChargePAK which charges your batteries while connected to the mains, for £29.99. My radio will be in permanent residence in my kitchen plugged into the mains so I haven't bothered with this.

What can it do ?

Right then, I won't bore you with the entire contents of the instruction manual but give you the main useful points I think you'll need to know before purchasing, and of course, my personal views of what I like about it.

The Pure ONE is a portable digital/FM radio. Switching on is a doddle, and the volume is self explanitory. If you press the 'stations' button, then the volume knob can be turned to scroll along the available stations. Press the centre knob and Hey Presto, your station is there. That's what I call simple to use. If you want your favourite stations in an instant, then you can preset up to 20 stations.

You can easily switch from digital to FM, but I don't think I'll be using FM again after the brilliant quality of digital.

Kitchen Timer. Ooh, I haven't tried it. I'll have a go now.......ok, set for one minute (easy to do)...... Well, I was prepared for a peircing beep , but in fact it's a mellow little 'beepity-beep, beepity-beep'. The radio cuts out and you get the soft beeping with the display screen flashing. A nice touch if you remember this facility exists. I'll probably stick to the timer on my cooker. A useful little facility though. You can also set a sleep timer where your radio can switch itself into standby mode.

...............The display:

The screen is 5.3cm x 1.7cm. Small, but easy enough to read when you need to. Icons show volume, signal strength, timer alert, battery, and the time which is from the DAB signal. (It's a grey screen with black writing and there is a backlight when you press any button.You can chose to have the backlight on,off or timed.) The radio station is always shown and the scrolling text is at the bottom of the screen.

For anyone unfamiliar with digital radio, scrolling text can be mesmerising at first. It gives information on the track playing, the radio programme currently on, what's on next, radio station websites, etc. The Intellitext function is quite useful and Pure have a textSCAN function which enables you to control and pause this text. They say it's particularly useful as it "lets you pause and control scrolling text, giving you time to note down web addresses, competition phone numbers or song titles." I have found that it's quite useful if I don't know what song is playing as these days the presenters don't seem to tell you!

There is a socket for headphones if desired.
You can use batteries and full instructions for use are in the manual. I choose to use the mains. If you want portability, there's "Around 20 hours of portable DAB listening from the optional, rechargeable ChargePAK; around 35 hours from six C size batteries; or connect to the mains for home listening".

More information: There is a factsheet you can download from pure.com which gives you all the information you could need about the particular product. You can also find more information about Intellitext and the stations available in your particular area.

The sound quality and range of features:

I find the sound quality absolutely brilliant. Very very clear. They volume goes up to a satisfying level without losing any of the clarity of reception. I was very impressed by this. For the price, I think that the range of features is excellent. There is enough to be impressed by without being overwhelmed by too many fiddly things I wouldn't use.

......................Suitability for your needs...........................

For my kitchen I'm glad It's easy to wipe clean. It's not easy to mark or dent, unlike some of the retro style casings I've seen. It's wonderfully portable and easy to position anywhere. It's smaller and neater looking than others I have seen.

Even if you don't know much about digital radio, I thoroughly recommend it. Forget your fuzzy old AM/FMs. Find out what's availible in your area through the website and inputting your postcode.

The dials and menus are all very easy to use and understand. If you lose the instructions you can always download the information from the Pure website.

..........................A little about digital radio in general:

In my opinion digital radios are brilliant because you don't have to twiddle around with knobs to get a good reception. Just one button press and the digital station is perfectly tuned for you. Fabulous. This is enough for me to switch to digital, but if you need to know what digital radio actually is, here's what Pure say about it on their site:

"DAB digital radio is different because, instead of being made up of analogue waves, the radio signal is transmitted digitally, as a series of 'zeros and ones'. You don't need a satellite dish to receive digital radio, just an aerial positioned in the correct place. Traditional FM analogue radio waves are sensitive to noise or distortion from electrical equipment or the atmosphere. The waves can bounce off tall buildings and hills and become interrupted or distorted.
As DAB digital radio uses digital signals, with plenty of extra information transmitted to allow the tuner to fill in any missing bits, the DAB signal does not suffer from the same problems as the FM signal. If you live in a weak signal area, you'll find that, even with all that extra information, the sound sometimes breaks up. If you live in a strong signal area, you'll find you have uninterrupted listening without 'drop-outs'.
DAB digital radio was developed by a consortium of 12 partners, known as EUREKA-147 - the system was originally called Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) and this is still used to distinguish a true DAB receiver from all other radio receivers. In 1994, Eureka-147 was adopted as a world standard and, today, most of the world has either implemented the standard or is currently testing it. The exceptions are the United States, which has embraced both satellite digital radio and High Definition radio, and Japan where cable is the chosen method of delivery for new radio formats. " Phew! Well, there you are then!

I like the range of stations at your finger-tips, such as FunRadio for the children. Stations you wouldn't come across on an old type radio. It's so easy to browse the stations, that you can pop from one to the other without having to tune it laboriously yourself. Brilliant stuff. I've been doing the radio equivalent of TV channel hopping and it's great!

Recommendation

I think the £49.95 I paid for this is excellent value for a digital radio, especially since a lot of them I looked at were more than double the price with less features. It's a nifty little wipe-clean, funky looking, crisp and clear, radio which I hope should last me a very long time. It'll be nice to have something to listen to whilst washing up!

Listening to my radio as I write isn't easy as I'm dancing in my seat trying hard not to type in words to the songs I'm hearing at the moment. Do I recommend the Radio? Yes! Wholeheartedly. " I'm lovin' it, lovin' it, lovin' it!"

This is definitely the ONE for me!

Thank you. Joanna. June 2006.

**** Update July 2006: ***

I highly recommend registering your ONE radio with the Pure site as soon as you can as they will let you know of any updates. I was beginning to worry my set had a problem as it wouldn't turn on from standby on a number of occasions. However, I received the following e mail not long after registration of my radio:

"Hi ONE owner!
Just to let you know that we have released a new firmware version for your ONE radio updating it to version 1.2. The new firmware version addresses a number of minor issues associated with station tracking while in standby.

You can download the new firmware version from the ONE support page. "

You are given a link to download your new version by connecting your USB lead. This is quick and easy to do. After downloading, the screen on your radio will tell you you now have version 1.2, as in my case. I now have no niggles at all with the radio and can rest assured that I will get further information sent by e mail. I would encourage anyone with any minor problems to seek help via the Pure website first instead of returning your set to the shop, as you might find an instant remedy like I did.