Pure Digital The Bug

Looking like the result of a drunken night between Short Circuit's Johnny Five and a Scutter from Red Dwarf, The Bug digital radio is likely to offend as many people as it attracts. We quite liked its styling, although we admit it is a touch on the large side.

If you can get past its retro looks, it appears to have plenty to offer. Top of the list are the USB connection and Secure Digital (SD) card slot. The SD card slot lets you timeshift radio, while the USB port gives you a way of downloading recordings to your PC. You can also play mp3 files stored on an SD card.

It all looks good until you try and use the appalling interface. The first problem we had was trying to turn up the volume. There's not a single button marked volume anywhere on the chassis, which is quite an oversight. We had to read the manual to perform this simple function.

The Bug will automatically locate all the digital stations and organise them by name. However, there's no simple way to build a list of favourites. A list exists for this purpose, but it only gets populated by the stations you have listened to the most, not by your choice. This is another oversight and makes The Bug difficult to use.

The rest of the menu system is equally bad, and it's very hard to navigate through submenus, as it's not always clear how to move up or down a menu. It doesn't help that the soft buttons aren't labelled well on screen.

It's frustrating to see a product that has so much wrong with it, especially when half the point of digital radio is how easy it is to use. It's a shame to see functionality go to waste.

That said, the sound quality is fairly good for such a device, but the nightmarish interface relegates The Bug to being just an interesting product to look at.

Contact: Pure Digital 01923 260 511
www.pure-digital.com

Specifications:

• SD Card slot
• USB port
• Dab digital radio
• Timeshift function