MP3 Gaze

The ATMT DAB Radio and MP3 Player’s aerial IS the headphones. Ingenious. I’m slightly disappointed to learn that the headphones don’t feature a huge wire circle protruding above your head, but still.

The battery life of the ATMT DAB MP3 No-Words-Just-Letters-And-Numbers is 50 hours for MP3s and just 15 hours for DAB. I never realised how energy-hungry digital radio was until recently. Maybe it uses extra power when it makes people’s voices go all robotic from time to time. Or is that just that the signal’s bad?

Why won’t anyone acknowledge the fact that the phrase ‘DAB digital radio’ makes you look like an idiot. DAB stands for digital audio broadcast. To say DAB digital radio is moronic. A DAB radio is digital by definition. In fact, it’s part of the name.

Okay. So now that the everyone in the world has been put straight and the phrase DAB digital radio will never again appear, on to the product. PURE’s Move is a good size. Let’s say that for starters. It’s about 15cm long, which is small, yet hard to lose. It’s just about the optimum size, I’d say.

The battery life isn’t bad either. It’s supposed to be 40 hours for DAB, or DAB digital broadcasts, if you’re in the habit of abbreviating something and then COMPLETELY NEGATING THAT ABBREVIATION by subsequently using the EXACT SAME WORDS that are represented by those letters.

You can pause the scrolling text on the screen, if you’re an abnormally slow reader.

Verdict: Two out of three. It loses marks for the use of the phrase ‘DAB digital radio’ on the press release. In fact, let’s make it one out of three, which is still the best mark I’ve ever given anything.

Okay, so this isn’t actually an MP3 player. I’m only covering it because I’ve a weakness for all things wind-up. It’s portable at least, so we’re in the same ballpark.

We’re all eco-friendly these days and there’s no burning of fossil fuels when you wind up your radio. I’m a little bit sceptical about things like this, however. The DEVO (is it a ‘the’?) can run on mains power or a conventionally charged battery. Could the wind-up mechanism merely be a gimmick?

Yes and no. The press release is honest enough to give some indication of how effective a minute’s worth of winding will be in charging the battery. A minute’s worth of winding is probably more punishing than you envision, by the way. I’ve got a wind-up torch and a solid minute of winding works the biceps something chronic.

A 60 second wind gives you three to five minutes of digital radio. This is rubbish. It’s nowhere near worthwhile. However, that same amount of winding will give you an hour of FM radio, which is also an option. That’s more than acceptable. It also puts into perspective just how energy-hungry DAB is.