On our desk this week - 3

DAB portable MP3 players

Digital (DAB) radio is really starting to take off in the UK. Whilst you US types have the satellite-based XM and Sirius services, which offer gazillions of channels and awesome sound quality for US$12.95 per month, we have free digital radio with a limited number of stations and fairly decent quality based purely on reception. Not a bad compromise, eh?

Last month, we looked at the MPIO PD100, which was a cool little device integrating DAB portability with a MP3 player. Well, it seems others are catching on, and we have two more devices here today.

Morphy Richards DAB MP3: Morphy Richards is a name you might associate with kettles rather than MP3s, but the electronics company is making a move into the digital consumer space in a big way. This player sports 512MB of internal memory for MP3s, as well as full DAB functionality.

The player is small and well-built, although the huge logo across the top does rather detract. The design is inoffensive, even if it isn't exactly Apple-cool. However, the controls aren't exactly intuitive: the volume up down is on the rocker switch in the middle, along with fast forward and rewind. Play is on an entirely separate button. Power is also a separate button on the top. It's all a bit bizarre.

You can't record DAB to the internal memory, which is a bit of a downer (although see below). There are no real unique points to this version over the MPIO that we previously looked at - it basically does exactly the same thing, but with a worse user interface. Not really much to recommend it, if we're honest.

Name: Morphy Richards DAB MP3
Buy it from: John Lewis stores
Cost: £180
Verdict: Small, looks quite nice, lack of functionality and bad button design.

PURE PocketDAB 2000: The second portable DAB player we have here is this offering from PURE. It sports a SD card slot so that you can record your MP3s on there, with a 64MB card being provided by default. Hardly generous.

As Benny pointed out at TR, where you can find an in-depth review of the 2000, it rather looks like it's eaten two iPods. It's not a small player by any means, and the moniker 'pocket' is a little optimistic, I feel. It's not heavy, just chunky - incredibly chunky after using an iPod. Why so big? If there was a chunky hard drive in there, we might forgive it. But this really is 'baggable' rather than 'pocketable' or 'jacketable'. you just made those words up, didn't you? -Ed

The interface is small and buttony, but the LCD screen is nice and large, albeit mono. All the main menu options are accessed by playing with the rocker switch in the middle of the machine.

There are two unique selling points for this device. The first is that the top has an optical output, so you can connect this straight up to an amplifier if you don't have a full-size DAB device. That way, you won't lose any of the awesome digital quality. The second is that it has a 'Revu' feature. This enables you to pause and rewind 'live' radio in the much the same way as a Media Center device or PVR / DVD recorder can. You can have up to 20 minutes of radio cached at any time, so the feature is only really useful for going back a short way in broadcasts.

The reception on the device will, again, really depend on your area: we had better luck outside than inside. Since the headphones act as an aerial, you may find that disconnecting headphones just to plug the unit into a normal stereo via optical will result a big drop in reception. Of course, if you can practically feel the DAB flowing through your house, you might be ok.

All in all, there's little doubt that there is a market for a digital radio + MP3 player. However, this still isn't the correct product for that market. For now, you might be better off with iPod + Podcasts.

Name: PURE PocketDAB 2000
Buy it from: AQDAB
Cost: £172
Verdict: Good concept; mediocre execution; too expensive.