Branding electronics with a well known name is nothing new and the Ministry of Sound have done it a few times before, but this can backfire so we can only hope the Ministry have got it right with their DAB Radio.

It was only a few weeks back when LP was wandering around a rather dull trade show that he stumbled across a stand selling MP3 players unbranded for the far east, these were 256mb players loaded with features and at a trade price of £40. So why you may ask is there not an opportunity to own a Lordpercy.com MP3 player on our front page? Sadly they wanted  a minimum order of 500 which was just a bit more than LP had on him in loose change.

But it proves a point white labled electronics products can make good money and the Ministry of Sound DAB Radio is a sound product underneath the name, we've been impressed with the Pure Pocket DAB and the Phillips DA1000 but they both come a quite a hefty price, if the ministry's device lives up to the high standards set by the others it's £80 price tag should clinch it.

By now you will know the benefits of DAB radio, apart from the clear sound and hiss free quality you also get access to may DAB only stations like six music and LP's favourite the Craig Charles Funk show, gone are days of wondering who that track is by as the display of the Ministry DAB DR011 lists track and artist while they play (broadcaster dependant).

The ministry of sound DAB radio is powered by 2 AA batteries and this gives about 8 hours continuous listening with a fair use of the backlight, you can get 10hrs if you leave it in your pocket and don't play with the on screen features. Measuring 6.5cm x 10cm x 2cm it fits very neatly into a pocket and is very lightweight and portable despite the patchy DAB coverage in the UK it really is a good alternative to an FM radio.

The user interface is good with the backlit blue LCD screen showing all the menu options which are then driver from the centre mounted 4 way joystick, it can be a bit fiddly at first and is not suited to in pocket operation but you soon get quite adept at using the joystick in combination with the centre select and other control buttons. Unlike the first attempts at portable DAB radios which had fill size aerials which you could extend and then get stuck in someone's nose! the ministry of sound DAB radio has the aerial built in to the headphone. While this is great for style and ease of use it does leave us in doubt that we could replace the standard in ear headphones with some of better quality.

While some of the DAB radios on the market have gone for retro chic you can rest assured that anything with the Ministry of Sound logo does not look like its made of bakerlite or that it should be on your grans window ledge, instead the DR011 is a very modern metallic silver gadget which feels good in the hand.

It looks like this white labelling of technology has worked for the Ministry, the DAB DR011 is a neat unit with good audio quality and ease of use, plus its only £80 when the competition are well north of £120 maybe it would be good to have a better battery life but that's about all we could find wrong. If you are in the market for a DB radio for the journey to work or for listening to the new DAB sports channels this is a sound investment.

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