Sony XDR-M1 Portable DAB/FM Digital Radio

I have found that reception is fine on trains and buses and when walking, subject to the usual problems with DAB when a building or something gets in the way. I love the design and the fact that the display lets you see a lot of information. The contrast could be better, but there is a backlight. It would also be a useful addition to get an accurate time-setting from the digital output rather than having to set the time as with an analogue radio. The two AA batteries used is a plus and of course rechargeables save a lot of money.

All in all I am very pleased with the unit and would recommend it.

Firstly, this little DAB sounds fantastic, the features on it are great, but as a portable device to be used while moving around I found it sadly lacking. I listen to DAB a lot and already have 2 DABs in the house so when this little beauty was announced I was really looking forward to it, as one of the other things I do a lot is cycle, the idea of listening to R6,R7, JazzFm et all even if just on the way to & from work was enough to justify the price.

As I work almost in the centre of Birmingham & my house is only 5 miles out I didn't think there would be any problem with reception. However there was a massive problem. Of the 15 - 20 minute cycle ride trying to listen to JazzFM (on the local West Mids duplex) roughly 30% of the time the radio cut out into silence, and of the remaining 70% most of the time it was just unlistenable gurgling (& I do mean unlistenable, not just a bit irritating, I really could not make out a full lyric or identify a tune. This was using brand new full strength Duracel Plus batteries). When I stopped my bike the signal became strong & the sound was perfect, which I assume must be something to do with the way DAB is broadcast.

On the next journey I chose Radio 6 to see if there was any difference (as it is on the BBC Duplex). On the BBC there was hardly any silence (only under bridges) & the constant gurgling was merely irritating, it only became unlistenable a few times (again if I stopped my bike the reception cleared up to mostly perfect). Speech on Radio 7 while cycling was pointless (unless for some reason you happen to want to only catch 2/3s of each sentence).

I did think that if I can't use it on my bike at least I can use it at the gym, as I would be kind of standing still most of the time. Now the Gym I go to is in the old Birmingham Children's Hospital. As you may guess the building is very well built old stonework, and it seems that as a consequence there was nowhere in the building that the DAB wasn't totally silent, absolutely zero reception, (switching to FM worked fine but that's not really the point of buying this unit).

I don't think Birmingham is especially bad for signal strength (in fact I've read that it's one of the strongest areas), so from my experience my advice would be to carefully consider what you intend to do while listening to a personal DAB as movement seems to be a no-no. From what I have read since returning it, interference due to movement seems to be a common issue with all of the personal DAB devices (however I can't really substantiate this as the Sony was the first one that fitted into what I wanted, size and quality wise, and so is the only one I've used).

The Sony is a very, very nice piece of kit, it's small, it's light & when you are not moving around too much it sounds fantastic, but if you do intend to use it (or probably any other personal DAB) on a bike or in an old building it seems like you might as well forget it for the moment...

(Please take the Star rating I have given with a pinch of salt, as is obvious I think that the radio itself as a product is lovely, but for my purposes portable DABs currently appear to be totally unsuitable/unusable.)