Page 1 of Pure - The Bug Stereo DAB £79.99 inc Postage

PURE - The BUG - Stereo DAB Digital Radio with Pause + Rewind - Graphite

Our Price: £79.99 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery.

Features

Pause, rewind and record live DAB digital radio with ReVutm
record to SD card (not included) for conversion to MP3
Playback MP3`s
Choose station by name
Scrolling text showing artist and song title or news and sports results
9 individual record timers
Dual alarms and sleep function
Digital optical out for external recording
USB port for PC connectivity and future software upgrades
10 station presets

In White

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0002ZDSDE/?tag=myrev09-21

or In Grey

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0002ZDSCU/?tag=myrev09-21

This item was edited on Thursday, 27th April 2006, 19:11

I`d say this is a bargain. I bought one earlier this year when they were on sale for £99 in Dixons (I think they were £149 when they first came out.)
Sure, there are now lots of cheaper DAB radios on the market (from £30 - £50 ) but there`s no comparison with The Bug. I have 3 other DAB receivers: Roberts Gemini RD-3 , Acoustic Solutions Portal 2 (both of these were given to me - faulty - by the guy who works at the local household waste dump. I took them home and fixed them) and a Sony XDR-M1 .
I live in a bad reception area. I can only pick up a few DAB channels on the other models - The Bug gets twice as many, including stations that are officially out of range in my area, although not all of them have clear sound. I mainly use it at work, where analogue FM reception is nonexistent. The Bug keeps me entertained all day with more stable reception than the other DABs. The unusual Alien Creature design, complete with glowing eyes, has been a talking point amongst colleagues who walk past and see it.
Another feature - the pause and rewind - is useful in case you missed something. If a song comes on that you really like, you can rewind to the start of it and record it to memory card. Buy this radio now - I`m sure this feature will be banned once the music industry finds out about it! You can also set timers to record your favourite programmes, or use it like an alarm clock. You can even get a 7-day programme guide, allowing you to see details and automatically record, for example every episode of a talking book. However I wasn`t impressed by this feature. First, a software upgrade has to be uploaded to the radio. This was fiddly and kept failing, and afterwards the rewind and record feature was broken. Then it took nearly an hour to download the programme data to the memory card. I didn`t find the EPG sufficiently useful, so I reverted to the old non-EPG software.
On the whole I would recommend this radio if you are looking for a DAB receiver. Remember it`s DAB only - no AM or FM. If you`re out of DAB coverage, it`s a rather expensive MP3 player. Other minor niggles - the built-in speakers are quite small. They are adequate, but better sound quality is possible by connecting it to a hi-fi. The radio`s USB port is very slow for transferring recordings to PC - use an external SD card reader. A card is not included but they are very cheap now - see other Bargain Buckets threads.
Hope this review has been useful.

Nice review hamid :D

When you consider that the new Pure 3 XT does the same job for £199, then you really appreciate that this Bug is a real bargain.

I have mine on order. I already have a DAB radio, but I wanted one with a sleep timer and alarm which this one has :D

Definitely a bargain :D
I ordered a 1GB Viking SD card from Ebuyer for £17.99, so I can record all my favourite programs.

This item was edited on Thursday, 27th April 2006, 22:37

One word of warning for those thinking of using as a bedside clock/radio.

The "standby" setting for the clock display is very bright.

It was like sleeping under a sunbed, so mine went back !

I bought one of these for my girlfriends kid for Xmas 2004 for £149.

Dont know if the do mp3 now, but when we had it, it recorded in mp2 format.
So had to download a converter program so he could use the files on his mp3 player.

In my opinion its the only DAB worth getting, all the others look too retro.

edit>>
It featured on Soccer-AM, so got one.

This item was edited on Friday, 28th April 2006, 13:26

Quote:
One word of warning for those thinking of using as a bedside clock/radio.

The "standby" setting for the clock display is very bright.

It was like sleeping under a sunbed, so mine went back !

I would have to agree, I got sun burn after a few nights, but I like it so much I just use sun block when I go to bed now.

You can alter the display brightness in the menu (1.2 firmware). You can choose different settings for when the radio is on or in standby. Just press Menu then Display Options. You can even switch the backlight off altogether if it bothers you. However, if you do this, you won`t be able to see the display or the time when it`s dark at night. Personally I just use the low brightness setting in standby and medium or high when on. Because the neck is flexible, the display can be pointed away from you if the light gets in your eyes at night.
As for the other question, the radio saves recordings in MP2 format (as used in DAB transmissions.) Unfortunately the Bug cannot save in MP3 nor convert MP2 to MP3. You can convert easily by using a PC and software such as Easy CD-DA Extractor. It takes a little time - about 10 minutes to convert a 40 minute recording on my computer (AMD Athlon 2000 XP 1.667GHz). The Bug can play MP3 files downloaded from PC to SD card. It only shows the first 8 characters of the filename, but supports ID3 tags, so you can see the full details of the song if the MP3 file contains ID3 info. The one feature missing, which I would have liked, is the ability to set the alarm to play a recorded MP2 / MP3 instead of live radio.
I also bought the 1GB Viking SD card from ebuyer.com when it was slightly more expensive - it`s amazing how much these have come down in price. Unfortunately I have found it`s quite slow when saving a recording. It takes up to 20 seconds to start and stop. This delay was much shorter (about 1 or 2 seconds) with an unbranded 256MB card that I tried. I get round it by rewinding 15-20 seconds further back to allow for the delay in starting a recording. I wonder if it`s worth paying a bit more for a high speed SD card?

This item was edited on Thursday, 4th May 2006, 00:09

Well, I got mine yesterday.

The standby display brightness is adjustable, and on the lowest setting it is a very dull glow, and can even be set to off.

I guess people here have either not read the instructions or don`t own a Bug !

Firmware v2.0 is on it`s way (I`m beta testing it :D ) This is much improved on the v1.3 beta 50, which had many problems. The new EPG is much easier to navigate and some new funtions have been added e.g. the ability to pause live scrolling text and scroll it at your own pace; additional timers added.
Additional info can be found here
I would recommend anyone to get this radio. As for the backlight, well turn it off and then hit the snooze button and the time shows up and after a few seconds the backlight turns off again.

Price now appears to be £81.49 inc postage for the white one or £121.64 plus postage for graphite.I followed the links in the first post.