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Digital radios make tuning in easy and sound superb. Ursula Seymour, who writes for PC Advisor, Mac World, Computer Buyer and The Sunday Times among others, picks five of the very best Click to view Top 5 Digital Radios.
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Best Budget Buy (Pure One) |
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 The Pure One is a great choice for the newcomer to digital radio, who's looking for a simple, inexpensive introduction to the technology. Perfect for the technophobe, it doesn't cost the earth it still brings you everything you need from a digital radio. (Compare Prices) |
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The One is another multi-award winner from Pure, with gongs aplenty from the likes of Computeractive, What Digital Radio?, What Hi Fi? and The Independent, which gave it the top slot in its list of the Top 10 digital radios in 2006 saying "for the price, this simple radio can't be faulted".
Because this radio costs a good £50 less than many of its competitors you do lose out on many high-end features, there's just one speaker, no Sky+ style pausing and recording of live radio and no electronic programme guide. But this lack of extras does have an upside, making the radio really easy to use.
All the main features are controlled using the large dial on the front of the radio, with large clearly labelled buttons giving you access to volume and stations. (Compare Prices) |
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 It does have some clever features though, such as the ability to pause any scrolling text on the LCD display, so if phone numbers and the like are broadcast to it, you can easily note them down.
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Intellitext |
 It also supports Intellitext, so you can read news headlines and sports results from participating broadcasters onscreen, a feature that will become handier as more stations implement it.
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Three Colours |
It comes in three colours and ditches the retro styling so popular amongst digital radio manufacturers. You can have in Apple-style white, girly hot pink or a Talksport branded black.
Despite only using one speaker, sound quality is surprisingly good. While it can't hold a candle to higher end models such as our Ultimate Evoke 3, it is pretty good for a budget radio.
Sadly, the One doesn't come with an alarm function, so you can't use it to wake you up, although it does have a timer so you can fall asleep listening to your favourite show. It also has a kitchen timer so you can use it to help you boil an egg for breakfast.
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 It can run off the mains, and without the batteries on board the unit is really light, or you can power it from six C batteries or the £29.99 optional ChargePAK.
While this radio may be pretty basic, it's a great choice for anyone who wants to just get up and running, rather than spend hours reading through a manual to decipher how everything works. And at under £50 it's a real bargain.
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| TYPICAL PRICE - £49.99/$98.50 |
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