Review: Pure Digital Evoke-3 DAB radio

The fact that Morphy Richards, a company more commonly associated with home appliances, was first to market with its DAB radio with EPG (electronic programme guide) last year must have been a bitter pill for more established audio brands to swallow.

Although the launch of the EPG-enabled Evoke-3 from Pure Digital is long overdue, it's an altogether slicker package.

EPG radio does for the airwaves what Sky+ did for TV, allowing users to set up personal recording schedules using a programme listings guide.

The Evoke-3 also offers timed and manual recordings and lets you pause and rewind up to 40 minutes of live radio.

Recordings are saved straight to SD card. A 64MB card is included, which is enough to store around an hour of recorded radio. Alternatively, you can record straight to an external device via the optical digital-out socket.

There's also a line-out socket to connect external speakers, but as the sound quality from the Evoke-3's built-in speakers is rich and balanced you're unlikely to need this except in large rooms.

Using the aux-in socket you can connect an external audio player, such as the Ipod or Philips HDD6320. The Evoke-3 is also able to display ID3 tag information.

All recordings are in the mp2 format, but the Easy CD-DA software available on the Pure Digital website converts recordings to other file formats including mp3.

A USB socket at the rear of the radio makes it easy to manage files on the SD card and upgrade the radio's firmware.

Unlike Morphy Richards' effort, the Evoke-3 comes with a remote control with which you can access the 99 digital radio station presets or 24 FM radio presets.

Other features include a radio/mp3 alarm and a touch-sensitive snooze handle that also illuminates the screen at night.

At just under £200, the Evoke-3 is an expensive object of desire.

Navigating the menus sometimes feels a little unintuitive, but overall itís a well thought out, feature-rich product that proves Pure Digital is still on top of its game.

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