When the package arrived at Lordpercy towers the Pure Pocket DAB 2000 raised a few eyebrows as it came in a massive box, surely a silth like DAB unit doesn't need this much packing? A small crowd gathered round as we hacked open the city link package to reveal a large box with the DAB 2000 sitting in the middle of plenty of protective packaging.

We found the DAB 2000 to be a surprisingly large device, despite its extra features we pictured it as a iPod mini sized device, not the larger than a standard iPod device that it actually is (116x63x28mm). On lifting it from its packaging we were also surprised by the weight 195 grams which is significantly more than an MP3 player with a 20gb hard disk inside, overall our first impressions were that this is a bit of a beast.

Styled in silver with a backlit 2" LCD screen the pocket DAB 2000 certainly looks good, the main controls are clustered around the 4 way selector button, these allow you quick access to the main features plus access to the device menu. The supplied headphones connect via a 3.5mm mini jack on the top edge of the unit and these seem quite decent apart from a rather horrible inline volume control unit that looks like something you'd find on a heading aid rather than a set of DAB radio headphones.

Power up the Pocket 2000 and get past the splash screen and you can start to use the main features, the DAB radio has auto tune so you can set it to go get all the available DAB stations which are then listed in alphabetical order. The screen shows symbols for the audio volume, battery remaining and the signal strength. This was our first indication of a problem, the signal indicator was on zero meaning the auto tune couldn't find any stations. We tested with the DAB 2000 alongside a Pure Evoke 2 which functions fine sat in the offices. The DAB 2000 failed to find any DAB stations repeatedly until will stretched out the headphones to their full length and held them aloft in a crucifix style, at last we got a list of DAB stations in the region.

We'll come back to the 2000's overall reception and performance but at least we could get on with testing it's features, listening to DAB is only part of the Pure's tricks, it can also record DAB onto the supplied 64mb SD card. This revue feature is a bit like Sky+ for radio and enables you to scan back through the radio station you are listening to up to 15 minutes, you can also make recordings direct to the SD card. It all seems to work very well and you can upgrade the SD card for more storage for very reasonable costs.

Alongside the DAB radio with it's easy tune EPG and text on screen there is also the good old FM radio which works much as you'd expect you can't record from the FM tuner which is a shame. Having FM is a good more as the UK's DAB coverage is still a little patchy.

Then we get to the Pure Pocket DAB 2000's new feature, MP3 playback. Using the SD card the Pocket 2000 can access MP3 tracks either transferred directly onto the card or via the supplied USB connector (and lead). In our tests this seemed to work very well and coped with having a folder structure on the device too meaning you can keep music organised. It did however set us thinking about the weight of the Pocket 2000 and how it provides 64mb of storage as standard within the unit (and supplied SD card) and the Apple iPod which was less has a 20gb hard drive!

Audio quality was good and even the rather unattractive headphones do a reasonable job of producing some bass, sadly the overall performance of the unit is marred by poor reception capabilities. We tried numerous tests and found that realistic use is only possible in a strong DAB signal area, you would expect to have the unit tucked away in a pocket as its name suggests and the earphones in your ears however we found this to be one way of encouraging poor reception. Walking around central London was like a DAB lottery with the signal being present one minute then turn a corner and it starts digital drop out only to go altogether.

The Fm tuner also suffers in this respect leading us to suspect that the aerial is either not quite up to the job or requires perfect placement to give adequate reception, which is possible in a home unit but not in a portable DAB radio. The Pure runs off 3 x AA batteries which are not rechargeable (unless you equip it with them) these form a significant portion of the overall weight.

Set to retail at £179.99 the pocket DAB 2000 joins the rather small number of portable DAB radios on sale in the UK, sadly we have to hold short of recommending it due to its physical size and weight combined with poor reception. The MP3 playback and record features work very well and add greatly to its attraction but it fails in its primary task as a portable DAB radio.

More Pure Digital Reviews

Published - 16/10/2005

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