Roberts Sports DAB/FM RDS Personal Digital Radio with Loudspeaker - Black

I have been using a Pure 2000 for the last 3 years and thought that the signal drop out and gurgling went with the DAB territory.
Bought this Roberts and on my normal 14 miles cycle commute (towns and country) had zero signal drop off or gurgling, BRILLIANT!
Another good feature is the larger and brighter text size of the display, it saves me using glasses or squinting when navigating channels etc.
Also used it in the car with the same good reception and performance.

I ordered this radio to replace an ageing Pure PocketDab 1500 which had given me excellent service. I sent mine back because I had the same problem as another reviewer in that it kept switching itself off and on again every few minutes. So, already for me a question mark over reliability. I expect I was just unlucky.
The appeal of this new model was the in-built speaker that gives it extra versatility. I agree with at least a couple of reviewers on here who say that the quality of the sound from the speaker is merely adequate, but it is a useful feature. To use it, though, you need to extend the very flimsy telescopic aerial. My immediate impression was that it could break off at the slightest touch.
Its smaller and lighter than the Pure. The light is visible all of the time, whereas the Pure only lights up when you touch the buttons. This means you can read the DAB text while you listen. I liked that, especially listening in the dark. Also handy was the sleep timer - another plus over the Pure.
The sound quality is good through the supplied headphones. For music stations I found it comparable to the Pure (i.e. excellent) but for speech programmes including 5 Live and football commentary (my main uses), the Pure beats it comprehensively in my view. Voices sound harsh and echoey to me. I did also experience some background hiss as others have mentioned, but again this was only really noticeable when listening to speech channels.
Navigation is fairly simple on the Roberts, but again the Pure scores higher in this area. In particular, access to presets on the Roberts seems slower than actually finding them by scrolling through the channels with the toggle switch. The Pure's presets are accessed in a matter of seconds - surely thats the point of setting them.
The charger supplied with the Roberts is light and compact, like a mobile phone charger. The Pure has a large and heavy one. Makes no difference is you're using it at home, but travellers may prefer the Roberts one for its better portability.
All in all, they're both very good, but for me, the Pure has the edge, even without the speaker.

Travel all over the country and always like to listen to the radio while i'm away.
I bought this little radio after having owned a few others that didn't come up to scratch and found it awesome.
Perfectly clear sound whether its in the house playing through the speaker or in my pocket playing through headphones as i'm out and about.
It really is the best personal audio player i've ever owned (and i've owned a lot).
DAB reception awesome!!