For you folks who can take advantage of the
DAB niceties,
Pure Digital has released a household radio that rocks time-shifting capabilities more commonly associated with your
Sky+ box. The Élan RV40 sports a svelte silver finish with a hint of retro in the grille, mixed with the curves of a more modern device, and is fairly stacked with thoughtful extras. The standout feature here is the ability to pause and rewind live radio for up to 30 minutes without any external memory cards, so you can conveniently listen to your own repeats instead of getting flustered with the lack of new content coming across the air. Although a bit more subtle, another snazzy inclusion is the "textSCAN" technology that allows you to time-shift DAB messages, while also storing "special Intellitext message" that shows users late-breaking information coming across the newswire -- of course, the standard preset storing, alarm clock / timers, and RDS support is included, and Pure reportedly threw in "USB upgradeability" to add "new features" when available, whatever that means. While the unit is apparently made to double as a household decoration (or an awkward sidekick to your new
Mac Pro), Pure kept the mobile crowd in mind by offering an optional "ChargePAK" to give you 15 hours of untethered musical nirvana. If you're lucky enough to be on the
right side of the pond, and in the market for a radio that literally does a dab of everything, you can snap up the Élan RV40 in September for £89.99 (about $172).
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Josh Warner @ Aug 10th 2006 12:19AM
[In RIAA HQ]
"What?! A consumer electronics product that uses commonly available technology in a novel way?! And it actually stores COPIES of our music?! This could allow people to skip ads or choose not to listen to our crappy music - oh the mayhem, oh the anarchy! This is like TiVo for radio, and it MUST BE STOPPED! Call the lawyers! CALL THE LAWYERS... ALL OF THEM!!!"
Lawsuit in 3... 2... 1...
God I am sick of the xxAA stifling innovative new ideas. This isn't even really new, but the reaction is almost as certain as the outcome. Because it's a "purely digital copy of the original" (buzzword: "copy" for DMCA relavance and technophobic judiciaries) the courts will side with the RIAA. I'm a bit cynical about this, as you may have gathered.
You saw it here first, folks.
Dan @ Aug 10th 2006 4:34AM
Do not get me wrong when I say "Why do people want to listern to radio", but if it's for the storys I understand but for music I think its always best to have your own collection on an mp3 player.
KH @ Aug 10th 2006 5:42AM
Eeww.. My mom use to have a silver purse that looks just like this thing..
Flameproof @ Aug 10th 2006 7:32AM
But it is a British toy, and our courts haven't quite decided that they have to listen to an American lobby-group. Not just yet, anyway..
KultiVator @ Aug 10th 2006 10:24AM
Sharp have had a great little DAB tuner with "Pause Live Radio" and recording features available in the UK for some time (Sharp DAB FV-DB2E).
Aguably nicer styling than any of the Pure units... unless you're a BIG fan of the retro-minimalist look that Pure keep rehashing.
Great sound quality and various (optical + line) outputs make the Sharp unit a better buy for anyone who wants a DAB unit with some versatility.
It's certainly nice to be able to wake up to Virgin radio, rather than some crappy local station with a half-baked brain-dead DJ churning out chart cr*p.
KultiVator
blackfeather @ Aug 10th 2006 1:30PM
I'd like to timeshift the alarm and sleep for another half-hour.