[leehaynes]

I'm considering purchasing a Pure Bug Too primarily as a bedside alarm clock radio.

I've looked at a few models but the bug too seemed to have a lot of features, including playback from SD card which my wife would use quite a bit, especially in conjunction with the sleep timer.

Does anyone have one of these?
What are your thoughts?
Is the sound quality any good?
Are there any better alternatives? (under £100)

cheers

Lee

[ProfessorYaffle]

I've got one and, for what I use it for, I can't fault it. I use it to schedule, record and playback radio, for which there are many timed events. For £80 or so, that's a lot of DAB functionality.

However, some people have had issues with the sleep timer and/or alarm functionality (which I don't use often but the multiple alarms are very useful). How widespread these issues are I don't know- perhaps others can help. The sound is good for it's size but there is VERY slight background noise.

[JuzzyD]

I'm pleased with mine (got it as a present at Christmas) and I find it relatively easy to use, occasionally it can be difficult to actually press the centre of the joypadbuttonthing but that may just be my big hands!

I've not had reason to use the sleep timer so I can't comment on that, but mine doesn't seem to have any background noise either.

[pentoman]

Hello

Was tempted to start a different thread but makes more sense to add to this...

Is there any way to make the 'tone' beeper alarm quieter? It's a bit loud.

Is there a quick way to turn off/on an alarm? It's annoying if you have a day off or get up early - having to go through disabling the alarms (I admit not a huge chore but slower than a simple on/off button) and then it's more tedious clicking through all the menus to re-enable them. Sometimes if I want to get up a few minutes early I can't, because I'd first have to disable the (too loud, see above) beeper alarm so it doesn't go off continually and wake all my housemates up, but the hassle of clicking through the menus to turn it off then clicking through again to turn it on again when I go to bed all makes it not worth it so I wait there until it goes off and hit 'cancel'! Perhaps I'm just lazy or it's because my joystick control is rather wobbly and the click function only sometimes works on it..

Also when the radio is on then the beeper goes off, the radio comes back at high volume briefly then switches back down, does anyone else's do this?

I bought a digital cable to plug it into my receiver/amplifier, but the quality was worse than FM which was a shame.

Also what are you guys all recording? I've never really seen much use for the recording function but plenty of you have so what am I missing? Any good shows I should be listening to? I quite like comedy I guess..

[ProfessorYaffle]

I record football commentaries to "enjoy" when drifting off to sleep (Liverpool fan, so it's quite effective!). Talking of comedy (what do you mean I Havant?) BBC7 replay some great comedy - especially 10 thru 12 weekdays. They're broadcasting the strangely compelling (and very funny) Count Arthur Strong Radio Show soon, which I'm recording.

As for your alarm issue - the fact it remembers the last settings when setting up a new alarm makes it fairly painless in my opinion. Perhaps you should abandon days off! If it were me, I'd simply turn it off at the wall when I go to sleep the night before a day off or turn the alarm volume in the alarm settings down really low...

I find using 2 fingers simultaneously at the 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock positions of the wobbly button ensures a centred press - never failed on me yet.

[Flimber]

Originally Posted by pentoman

...
Is there any way to make the 'tone' beeper alarm quieter? It's a bit loud.

Download an alternative alarm ringing sound and put it on the SD card. Use that as your alarm tone

Originally Posted by pentoman

Is there a quick way to turn off/on an alarm?

No. It's a pain, isn't it ?

Originally Posted by pentoman

Also when the radio is on then the beeper goes off, the radio comes back at high volume briefly then switches back down, does anyone else's do this?

Yip !

Originally Posted by pentoman

Also what are you guys all recording? I've never really seen much use for the recording function but plenty of you have so what am I missing? Any good shows I should be listening to? I quite like comedy I guess..

Are you kidding me ? Radio Four is full of class comedies. Start with Just a Minute and work your way down from there

Mike.

[hannahntilly]

Re. turning off the alarm : If the radio is off, you can use the preset button next to the alarm time on the Bug's face(!) to access the alarm settings reasonably quickly without the palaver of turning on and selecting from the menu. Is that what you mean? You can do the same to turn it on too.

There are loads of good comedy shows on R4 if they match your tastes. The usual slots are 1130, 1830 and 2300 on weekdays. I transfer my recordings to the PC which is attached to my hi-fi for playback or listen on my iPod. Quality of speech playback depends on your PC soundcard but I have no complaints. FM is theoretically better but as I don't have a decent aerial attached to my decent FM tuner, I much prefer DAB.