Roberts Play20 Radio

Despite DAB being a terrible radio format with all stations being compressed in audio and in bit-rate to save money, the radio sounds good - just not great. Like all DAB radios, you can't change the way it sounds, no equaliser settings, many stations play out muffled (doesn't matter which DAB radio you buy). Setting the stations to memory is easy enough, and like most DAB radios, if you accidentally do a full rescan for stations, it also blanks the stations you saved, so you have to spend ages re-adding your favourites. The FM past of the radio is good, sounds better for stations like Classic FM, and also, FM have all the stations in stereo, where 98% of stations on DAB / DAB+ are in mono (even the ones in stereo on FM). Not tested the Bluetooth streaming. Best bit is the radio is powered by 4 AA batteries, so you can use regular or rechargeable (I recommend rechargeables), so your down time is the time it takes to hange the batteries, unlike other radios with built in batteries, which you'd have to put on recharge and not listen at the same time. Is it worth the cost, that's up to you.

We are very happy with this radio. We bought it for use in the greenhouse and garden. It is easy to set up and use and the sound is pretty good. We love being able to recharge the batteries we use whilst they are still in situ, no need to buy a separate charger. The radio is clearly well built, I didn't want a wood finish because of where we would be using it. Overall we are happy to recommend it to others. Good value for money.

A really nice little radio. Works on Mains, or Battery. If using NiMH you can charge them in the radio at a switch of a small button inside the back. It looks good, is extremely well made and the sound is better than anticipated for something of this size. It is really easy to get up and running although I struggled to get more than 4 presets to work as there is no documentation with the radio. I found them online at the Roberts site and all is fine now, though including them would have been preferable and why I marked it 4 star and not 5 star.

I bought this to be able to receive DAB+, which my previous DAB radio doesn't. I couldn't be more pleased. I bought the grey and white version and it looks very smart. The grey section is rubberised and gives the radio a very nice feel. The build quality is just superb. In the box you get the radio, the power supply/charger and instructions. The charger connects to the radio with a proper power plug - not a flimsy USB like some. DAB reception in my area isn't the best, but this radio works really well for me. Tuning is easy, as is storing presets. FM reception works brilliantly too! Pairing with my iPhone was very straight forward and bluetooth streaming works well. The sound is very good for such a small speaker. The colour info screen is very clear. I did wonder if this would drain batteries quickly, but battery life is excellent. You can also listen with headphones via the 3.5mm headphone jack. This is in stereo, which is great! The thing that swayed me more to this radio was the ability to charge rechargeable batteries in situ with the included power supply. A fabulous feature. There is a little switch in the battery compartment which you set depending on whether you have non-rechargeable or rechargeable batteries installed. Obviously you wouldn't want to try charging non-rechargeable batteries! The charging works well when the radio is off and is indicated by the light on the front plus the screen says battery full when charged. The standard USB socket on the side of the radio is a bit of future proofing from Roberts. It's for future firmware updates. But isn't really used at the moment. This radio exudes quality. Yes, it's a bit more expensive than some, but it feels like it will last! I'm so pleased I bought this!

Bought this to replace a Uno Logic which suffered from a fatal overdose of abuse. The sound is just a little tinny on pop and electronic music, as some people have observed, but given this unit’s diminutive size I think that it more than meets expectations. However, if like us you mostly listen to speech radio then the Play 20 exceeds expectations, the sound on voice is crystal clear. Also, the sound is (perhaps surprisingly) very decent for classical and other acoustic music. Additionally, this radio is capable of achieving decent volumes (the Roberts Rambler BT, which I also own and like, is quieter despite being significantly larger). On headphones (I’ve just tried it out with a pair of Grado SR80Es) the sound is exceptionally good all round. The lack of rotary controls for volume and channel selection makes this radio a little more fiddly than Roberts radios equipped with these controls, but this is no big issue once you’ve preset the radio stations that you listen to regularly (which was quick and easy, assuming you read the instructions!). Finally, the area where it seems to me that most DAB equipped radios fall down, FM reception is as good as I’ve encountered; we live in an area with rather poor FM reception (several million tons of chalk lie between us and our nearest transmitter) but this radio managed to readily find BBC Radios 3, 4, 2 and Solent. I note that some reviews suggest that this radio may be temperamental for reception in respect of placement, but I wonder whether or not they have tried fully extending the aerial (as per instructions). My initial impressions suggest that this radio is no more temperamental in this respect than any other Roberts radio (and we, for our sins, currently own six in addition to this one). My suggestion, if you have reception problems but decent internet, is to buy an Echo; otherwise, in all respects, for the money and for the size, this is a well thought-out and absolutely first class product. Having the option of using AA batteries or being able to use and recharge rechargeables is the icing on the cake. The addition of a travel pouch to protect the radio might be quite useful. It doesn’t come with one. However, the radio does have a locking mechanism to stop it from being turned on in transit, a very good detail. 23/3/22. I have now tried out some other headphones with this radio and am happy to report that it has absolutely no problem driving 250ohm Beyerdynamic DT990s.

Bonne radio, conforme aux attentes. Attention toutefois, ce produit étant expédié par Amazon UK, la prise secteur est une prise anglaise non compatible avec nos prises françaises... J'ai failli le renvoyer à cause de ça car ne n'était pas précisé dans la description... Heureusement que j'ai trouvé un vieux câble compatible à la maison. J'ai enlevé deux étoiles pour ce problème, au vu du prix c'est quand même un comble de vendre un produit en France sans le bon adaptateur secteur...

Entspricht meiner Erwartungen.

Una maravilla. Opción de mantener la pantalla en negro para no gastar pilas un acierto. Ligera i bonita