value for money is often a derogatory term in consumer electronics but Pure have a real value for money item here and we mean that in a good sense, the Elan has a contemporary style and will fit in wherever you choose to locate it. The 280 x 165 x 80mm unit clad in sleek silver feels well built and not at all plasticky  it's quite light when using mains power but going mobile means stuffing the Elan DAB with 6 (yes six) C cell batteries which add a large amount of weight.

All this battery power means a possible time away from the mains of 30 hours while using DAB or 80 hours should you revert to FM reception, audio quality is pretty good too, the 3 inch drive units with dual bass reflex ports do their best to convey the whole audio frequency range. But this is not a room filling unit and is more suited to speech than pop or rock music, for example it sounds fine on Radio 5 Live and even Radio 2 but Radio 1 and its pop programming leaves the Elan struggling and sounding a bit lacklustre.

Having sited the Elan in our kitchen its clear that any DAB radio in this kind of environment has to be easy to use, no in depth menus or complicated controls, the Elan wins here with a clear 2 line 16 character display and a simple and very effective row of controls along the top edge of the unit.

There are 8 DAB presets and 8 FM presets for storing your favourite stations, but with DAB re tuning is easy with the station name displayed on the LCD screen. DAB allows for scrolling text too with news headlines and track name available on some services plus it lets the clock on your radio get synchronised with the time signal broadcast alongside the stations.

If you decide to use the Elan as your bedside radio then you can take full advantage of the radio alarm clock and use the sleep timer facility so you can listen to DAB stations as you drift off to sleep safe in the knowledge that the radio will shut itself off.

The Pure Elan DAB radio is not endowed with any form of recording system unlike its funkier brother the Pure Bug, but then its not really targeted at that kind of market, you are for more likely to find an Elan in a Kitchen or Potting shed and acoustically its ideal for that environment.

Retailing at under £80 its real competition is the Intempo PG01 but our review of that unit really shows just how good the Elan is at doing the basics well and as such the Elan gets our budget best buy recommendation.

More Pure Digital Reviews

Published - 16/03/2005

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