Best Sub £100 DAB Portable Radio

[snekkie]

Any suggestions?

Would ideally like an alarm clock feature.

[ProfessorYaffle]

I recently bought a Pure Bug, discounted due to the release of the Pure Evoke-3, and it's been a bargain at £85. Although there are well-documented issues with the latest EPG firmware (which is BETA after all), the v1.2 firmware is fine and the radio's multiple alarms are very useful. I got it for the timed recording (to SD card) ability and haven't had an issue with it thus far.

However, it's an ugly beast, so you may wish to look elsewhere if that's an issue - the other Pure models are decent bits of kit - the Sonus, Tempus or Chronos are all capable units for the kind of budget you are looking at.

[Bassbin]

Vote for the Bug here to. Bought one on ebay a couple of months back for about £70. If it packs up would be happy to spend up to £100 on another one.

[Raindance]

Hitachi from Richer Sounds. Got one & it works great. They have lots in stock at 39.95. The headphone out through my audio system sounds great too. No alarm clock, but you could always get a cheap mains timer for it!

[snekkie]

cheers for the info, I gave in and got the Evoke-3

[freecell]

We have a Hitachi DAB radio bought from Currys some while back. It's got awful reception. Only works in one location in the kitchen and if you walk past it the signal degrades terribly.

Thought it was just our poor signal area until we bought a Pure Chronos alarm. Its soooo much better. Good reception anywhere, speaker volume and quality are very acceptable (its a clock radio so not expecting hi-fi quality output). We had poor analogue reception in the bedroom but the Chronos picks up good strong signals and no drop out. Gets my vote. My son had a Bush DAB alarm bought from Argos couple of years ago and it failed after 6 months.

Chronos has multiple alarms and looks good too. Things Pure could work on are the display. Its very bright, even on dimmest setting, so if you like a very dark bedroom you'll end up putting something over the display which defeats the object of a clock. I found the best solution was to put a piece of tranparent red plastic over the display which acts like a red filter in photography and darkens the blue display background but lets you still read the figures.

[hespro]

Bought a Pure One yesterday for a few pence under £50 and I'm very impressed with it. I live in a poor-ish signal area but the reception is excellent = much better than a more expensive Hitachi set I bought last year (which only works upstairs)

[njp]

If anyone is considering (or has already purchased) the Pure Bug, the version 2 firmware was recently released, and it now has full EPG support which actually works (unlike in the beta releases!).

Now highly recommended.