Pure Digital Siesta

Update, January 2012

Sadly, I have to report this radio failed to turn on the other day. It seems to have developed a fatal fault and is now out of warranty. Quite a surprise and such a shame - so I've just re-rated this down to 3 stars, for questionable durability!

[Original review follows]

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The Pure Siesta is an up-to-date bedside radio and sophisticated alarm clock. It’s a quality product that has served us well for over a year. The unit is well-designed, relatively easy to use and still available at a fairly reasonable price of around £50 or less. For a digital radio it’s comparatively economic to use, with some creditable energy-saving features.

As the Siesta is an alarm clock radio first and foremost, this review focuses primarily, but not exclusively, on its impressive alarm/clock functions as we’ve come to use them in our household.

The package

In addition to the radio itself, the only substantial items are the mains adaptor and a simple manual. These were well packed and presented.

Documentation

• Owner’s manual: illustrated; multilingual with 12 pages in English
• Pure website, for information and updates: http://www.pure.com

The instructions in the manual are clear and I’ve had no problems following any of them. The website may be useful for updates but this hasn’t been necessary to date.

Setup

This was straightforward ‘plug and play’, as we’ve come to expect nowadays, with the full range of available stations ‘autoscanned’ successfully. The clock also receives its settings automatically, which is vital. No need for any manual adjustments, even when ‘the clocks change’ for daylight saving!

Once set up, you can now scroll through stations using + and – keys and/or preset favourites. You can also set several alarm options. (See below)

Practicalities

This unit fits well into a bedside table corner, being basically triangular in shape and compact in size.

Controls are on the top and display at the front. All buttons are quite clearly labelled and accessible, with a large ‘snooze’ button easily-located in the dark! Everything, if not immediately obvious, is clearly explained in the instructions.

The clear LCD display has dual brightness levels, according to active usage. This has never kept me awake at night but there can be a slight problem with visibility when viewing from certain angles.

The radio

Sound quality from the 1.7 watt mono speaker is fit for purpose and digital reception is as clear as you would expect from the brand leader Pure. There is a stereo output for headphones but we haven’t found this particularly useful in practice, so far.

Up to 8 digital and 8 FM stations can be preset, which is more than adequate for our purposes. In practice we only listen to 3 or 4 digital stations.

The simple wire aerial may not be to everyone’s taste aesthetically but it does the job in our house and can easily be adjusted for optimum reception.

Other standard DAB functions supported include ‘intellitext’. (See below)

The alarm clock

This is where the Siesta scores, in my opinion. It combines good clear radio reception of all the national and local stations that we would want (and more) with a sophisticated alarm clock that actually wakes us up quite gently – at the right times!

Three separate alarm times can be set for weekdays and weekends. Many other products only seem to support two.

You can choose whether to wake up to an alarm tone or to the radio (FM or DAB). But there are a few limitations:

1. You can’t set different times for individual weekdays, though you can at least for Saturdays and Sundays
2. There’s no choice of stations; defaults to last one played. [Note: more recent models may now have this capability.]

The volume can be set for each alarm/station, which is useful to avoid too harsh a wakening or indeed the opposite! Humphrys, Heavy Metal or Holberg Suite – it’s up to you… Either way, that Snooze button is always at hand, and the snooze time can be varied between the standard 9 minutes and a whole hour. It’s all in the manual.

We currently have ours set to our favourite morning station for weekdays, at a volume that works best for us. Other favourite stations are preset for easy access. This works very well but I am now considering using the other alarms for weekends, with the possibility of different times for Saturdays and Sundays… It’s just a shame you can’t differentiate between individual weekdays, unless of course I’ve missed something and you know better(?)

A green DAB?

This product claims low power consumption (Standby: less than 1 watt; Active: c. 2 watts). So it’s quite environmentally friendly for DAB, with sensible default settings for standby mode. (See technical information for further details)

BTW: Ours is actually silver but other colours are available!

Other features, tested and untested

• ‘Intellitext’ (displays extra programme information supplied by broadcasters)
• ‘textscan’ (not tested)
• Sleep timer (not tested)
• Updatable – via USB and Windows PC with internet access (not yet tested)

Consult Product Information and technical documentation for further details.

Recommendation

This is a quality alarm clock radio at a reasonable price with flexible alarm functions and very few drawbacks. It may be worth shopping around for latest models with updated specifications and best prices for the configuration that suits your own ‘alarming needs’!

Related links

• Manufacturer’s website: http://www.pure.com

Many thanks for reading. All opinions expressed are personal. Also on Dooyoo under the same name.

[© SteveS001 2011, 2012]