PURE Digital Siesta Radio Review

Posted: 26 March 2008 by Nate Lanxon

PURE Digital's Siesta is an uber-planet-friendly DAB radio, which prides itself on having a one-watt power consumption when in standby, where the average for portables like this is ten watts. The Siesta will set you back £49 and has the usual DAB functions we expect from PURE Digital's labs. Plus you'll have the peace of mind of knowing the system comes with minimal packaging.

While bass and fidelity are lacking from the single speaker driver, overall sound quality is clear and sharp. It's a nice enough bedside radio with excellent reception to boot. And it's also a doddle to set up -- you'll be ready to go within a minute. The auto-tune kicks things off on its first start-up, meaning no messing around with configurations.

A simple LCD screen is backlit by a dim blue glow, and -- surprise, surprise -- there are also some big numbers that tell the time. Although there's an FM radio, DAB's where you'll want to spend the most of your time. When listening to a DAB broadcast, station and song info sits on a couple of lines below the clock. You've got the option of setting three alarms, each of which has a range of recurrence options. There's also a snooze timer with a top snooze time of 60 minutes.

Should PURE Digital release an update to the ever-important firmware of an alarm clock, a USB socket built into the base of the system will let you import it. On the top is an all-important headphone socket if the honourable spouse lies in disagreement with the content of the radio station.

While most of PURE Digital's products exhibit nothing short of terminal ruggedness, the Siesta feels distinctly weedy. It's sturdy, though, and will resist snooze button-related morning batterings. Also a little unsatisfying is the painfully cyclic method of setting alarms -- until you get used to it, alarms can be distinctly confusing to set.

And another thing. We don't think there's a need for the Siesta's backlight when in standby -- planet-conscious customers will certainly be content with pressing a button to light up the clock at three in the morning.

Our last gripe is with the FM mode's tuning ability: it's very slow. True, DAB is the main function and its tune speed is almost instantaneous. But for those times when the luxury of digital broadcasts are scarce, the FM portion of the Siesta disappoints.

For £49, this little DAB setup is perfectly acceptable. Sound quality's good, it's easy enough to use once you figure out how to set the alarms, it's not offensively designed and the price is fair compared to other DABs out there. Plus, it'll keep your inner hippy content in knowing that you're not destroying Mother Earth as much as the bloke next door.

Like most electronics, this radio is made in China, but the manufacturer assures us the factories are approved to Sedex standards, which lends a certain amount of credibility to the operation in terms of ethics. And of course the green benefit you're really getting here is low power consumption -- the Siesta uses one watt on standby and only two when active, whereas the average for the top ten selling DAB clock radios in 2006 was just under six watts on standby and almost eight watts when active. It should be noted that these figures are from PURE Digital's own research, and it didn't say which other radios were in the top ten.

But even so, the difference in power consumption can't be ignored. Plus, the company's self-imposed environmental initiative, EcoPlus, ensures that packaging is made from a minimum of 70 per cent recycled material and all instruction booklets and other documentation are printed with soya-based ink on 100 per cent recycled paper. When it comes to consumer electronics, PURE Digital's environmental creds are pretty darn good.