13.9.2015

This is an excellent little device, and the issues mentioned below are all minor in my opinion.Pros* Big sound for such a small device; it's a richer sound than I'd expect from such a small speaker* Long battery life, and recharges quickly* With the telescopic aerial, I can get better reception than my previous Pure Move 2500* Build quality is excellent, and seems to be much better than my previous Pure Move 2500* 'Favourite buttons' is a really nice feature. I like that they automatically set to the stations you listen to most (and can be manually set too). It took me a little while to figure out that these were separate to the presets,and that they were for both DAB and FM.* Auto tune is speedy (I'm assuming it does a full band III scan)* Looks great. It's a mix of classic Sony design, with modern aesthetics.Cons* When using the headphones as an aerial, sensitivity does not seem to be quite as good as my previous Pure Move 2500; but as it's broken I can't do comparisons, so I'm only going by memory. From previous hotspots when walking, I seem to recall my Pure Move 2500 performed better. Without investigating reception in the areas I use this, and having my old receiver for comparison, I decided I can't knock off a star really.* If the scrolling text being broadcast changes before the previous message has had a chance to finish scrolling, then you will not see all of the message (even if it's still in the first iteration). Also, unlike other receivers I have used, the scrolling text does not pause when it reaches the end; so you do not get much of a chance to take in the last letters. Another issue is that occasionally the last letter may be chopped off (this doesn't always happen due to character width and message length being variable). As most people don't particularly care about (or use) the scrolling text service, this is a minor issue. Funnily enough, my old Sony DAB had a similar problem. C'mon Sony: write a better scrolling text algorithm please! It's not a big problem, but I feel that a lack of thought/testing has gone into this feature.* I have accidentally flicked the hold switch when putting the radio in my pocket. Either moving the switch location, or using an extended button press would solve this. Very minor issue.* When pressing the preset button, you can sometimes accidentally push it downwards/upwards and activate the full station list instead. Slightly frustrating at first, but then you get used to it, so not a huge problem.Nice-to-haves (ultra-picky stuff that mainly comes down to personal preference)* It would have been nice to have an auxiliary in: as this has such a powerful speaker, it would have been great for hooking up your phone or other device when on the move. To save space, the headphone socket could have even doubled up as an auxiliary in.* A display mode with vertically scrolling text would have been quite nice; perhaps with the display mode changing after a time out (which my Pure Evoke Flow does)* It would be nice if auto tune did not wipe multiplexes that were previously picked up. For example, if you did an auto tune when RF conditions were particularly poor, you may lose a multiplex that you can sometimes pick up. This is by design, so I haven't mentioned it as a con. I prefer how Pure devices handle this (with a marker to show stations that were not available in the last tune, and an option to trim stations). I haven't had a chance to try already saved presets/favourites, for stations in multiplexes that were not picked up in the last auto tune, but it would be interesting to see how that works.* It would have been nice to have a way to see how much time is left on the sleep timer

8.5.2017

There are dozens of good reviews here and elsewhere but this radio is even better than I expected. Even in a poor reception area, stations are clearly received in mono on both FM and on DAB. There are a few shortcomings of course.STEREOIf you use headphones, it automatically switches to stereo which is not quite so praiseworthy. In a poor signal area the signal breaks down far more but you can't turn it to mono to get rid of the problem. In a good reception area the 'hifi' quality via headphones is perfectly acceptable on FM; surprisingly good actually BUT it is severely volume limited to comply with Euro reg. IP/09/1364 so it probably won't go a loud as you want with good quality headphones.It is nothing like as good 'hifi' on DAB as the audio quality is plenty good enough to reveal the inherent shortcomings of DAB transmissions. Anyone with decent hearing will switch back to FM to get the subtlety that our awful DAB system destroys. You can't blame the radio for that of course and the Sony is DAB+ ready so if and when we get a decent digital service in the UK, the radio is ready for it. Because it is DAB+ ready, it should also pick up digital radio when in other countries. I have not tried that yet.Highly recommended for talk radio but not really suitable for music via its 1.5" speaker nor on headphones with DAB. Until our wonderful FM service gets gets turned off, you can get excellent 'hifi' sound via headphones and FM - as long as you don't want it up loud of course.The ON/OFF switch!!!!!Do be aware that it has an unusual ON/OFF switch that some people have broken. Unfortunately, it is not a normal latching ON/OFF switch. It does different things depending on mode and direction. From the central switch position, marked by a dot, if you move it LEFT, it locks in that position but if you move it RIGHT it springs back to the central position. It takes only a gentle touch to the RIGHT to turn it either ON or OFF. If you slide it to the LEFT it locks either ON or OFF to reduce the chance of inadvertent actuation. If you lock it 'ON' then moving the slide switch back to the central dot 'unlock' position does not stop it playing BUT if you lock it 'OFF' and then unlock it by moving the switch to the central dot position, it turns on straight away without having to move it to the RIGHT as you normally would to turn it on. Thus you have two different ways of turning it ON but only one way of turning it OFF. The logic of that is flawed and is bound to cause confusion. Maybe it has fooled some people into pushing the switch harder than they need to but a gentle touch is all it should need. It would be far better if Sony dispensed with the lock and had a simple, intuitive ON/OFF switch.The favourite's buttonsJust three favourites buttons are perhaps all they had room for, so I will forgive that, BUT they are the same texture as the radio and are dead flush with the top of the radio so you can't feel them in the dark. Given that many of us will keep this radio by our bedside, that is a thoughtless bit of design. How about some braille style dots or a slight indentation Mr Sony? Bizarrely, the buttons on the front and side are deliberately tactile even though they are far less likely to be needed in the dark.A few shortcomings but it is still an excellent little radio which will go in my suitcase as often as my toothbrush.P.S. In case anyone scoffs at my use of the term 'hifi', it does actually meet the original 'High Fidelity' specification. Not on DAB of course.

23.10.2015

This is an extremely attractive, very small, lightweight radio with a big, rich, clear sound. I was surprised just how small it is when I saw the diddy box in which it came. Having a built-in rechargeable battery that lasts for several days’ use (officially it's 10 hours of continuous use but this depends on the volume level audio is played out), makes this a great little radio to carry and use about the house. The DAB signal in my area means that I need to use the aerial fully extended at all times. It is nice to have DAB radio with the lightness and portability of the old transistor radios from the AM boom days.The radio is very attractively designed. The display panel is clear and easy to read.The buttons and menu system I found easy to follow and program. The on-off and 'hold' switch is easy to operate. The hold option allows the radio to be locked on a particular setting so that picking the radio up and accidentally pressing a button doesn't change the station. There is a neat drop-down foot at the back of the radio that helps stabilise it when the aerial is fully extended. I have found this to work very well. There are the holes for a lanyard to be fitted but no lanyard or strap was supplied with the radio. There is a headphone out jack so that external headphones can be used with the radio. A standard microUSB to USB cable is supplied to charge the internal radio battery. No charging plug is supplied but a standard mobile phone charger or connection to a computer can be used to charge the radio.The radio comes with an English operating instructions leaflet and the same instructions in five other languages. The instructions are clear and easy to follow. The most difficult thing about the instructions is that they are printed on an A3 sheet of paper that needs to be opened out fully to read.There are three quick access buttons. These can be programmed to either a DAB station or an FM station. A single press of one of these buttons will go directly to that station. There are 10 preset station menu slots that can be saved for both DAB and FM for quicker access from the menu system. These can be accessed with a couple of presses of the Enter rocker switch. A single button press can switch between DAB and FM. All DAB stations are available as a text list and are easy to choose. FM stations need are scanned to find them each time, unless the station has been added to the preset list.The radio supports the DAB+ system should the UK ever change over to that superior broadcast method. Thankfully the radio also supports FM radio and does allow the saving of FM on any of the three quick access buttons and on a FM preset playlist.I've been very impressed with this radio. I've enjoyed using it and listening to it. I have found it easy to use the buttons and menu system, to save and select the stations and I like the rich quality of the sound output from such a small radio. I never knew that DAB radios could be so small and effective.

14.11.2016

UPDATE at six months: still love this to death after six months' use. In fact, I love it so much, I just bought another one, this time in black. But now I'm thinking maybe I really need more of them dotted around the house so I can get rid of my old DAB radios that seem like clunky dinosaurs compared to this slick little beast.ORIGINAL REVIEW:This radio is ridiculously small and light, even compared to other small radios I have. And yet Sony has crammed in more useful controls and a better display than most radios four times the size. It’s outstandingly nice to use, beautifully made, and sounds good for its size. It even has a set of truly clear instructions. What’s not to like? Perhaps only the price,but the more you use it, the more acceptable the price seems.I really like the three instant-access favourite-station buttons on the top panel. Setting them is virtually instant too, though I wish the smooth buttons were easier to distinguish by touch. Setting presets with the silver ‘jog’ lever is easy and a pleasure. Tuning FM stations and setting them as presets is almost as easy as with DAB.The big display shows several lines at once so you can navigate the list of stations better. It has space to show lots of info simultaneously, like the time, the station and programme descriptions. It even tells you which multiplex you're tuned to, not that you really need to know. It's a clear display, though the orange backlight tends to cut out before the programme info has finished scrolling, and with the backlight off, it's harder to see, though if you press the ‘Back’ button, the display lights up without changing any settings.The delicate seven-segment aerial extends so high that you'll be glad of the neat fold-out stabilising ‘foot’. For most stations (DAB+ stations are the exceptions) one segment seems to be enough though, and it even works fine with it folded flat sometimes. When you use the radio with headphones (or connect it to an external speaker with a cable), the Sony uses the headphone cable as the aerial instead of the extending aerial, so reception may be compromised.Battery life seems well up to the claim if not a bit better. The radio beeps a warning when the battery is about to run out.The sound is very good for the size of speaker but better for speech than music. Listen to Radio 4 and it can sound uncannily clean, clear and crisp. The human voice sounds remarkably realistic. Simpler music sounds quite nice too. But heavy rock or classical symphonies reveal the limitations of a tiny speaker, and the more you increase the volume beyond just over half way, the harsher and harder it sounds. If I listened to music mostly and didn't want such a small radio, I'd probably go for one with a bigger speaker. But for Radio 4, it's great. Easy to see why this radio gets so many five star reviews.

18.9.2015

Sony have produced a well thought through and executed portable DAB (and FM) radio.It has an internal, chargeable battery via the more and more ubiquitous USB/micro USB charger. Probably most of us now have several of the mains plugs which the USB side plugs into. My radio arrived with a modicum of charge already in the battery, which meant I could turn it on and use it immediately. As soon as you turn it on for the first time it automatically searches for all the DAB stations available in your area, and will immediately start playing the first alphabetically named. My only bad moment. A music station NOT to my taste.Scrolling the Preset/Enter button swiftly enable me to whizz down the alphabetic list and enter a station I could listen to whilst I read the instructions. I hadn't realised the battery held charge enough to operate from the off!You have the opportunity to set 3 `favourite' stations for immediate access on buttons on top of the little radio. And also, you can choose to save 10 DAB and 10 FM stations as `presets', so avoiding forever needing to scroll the alphabetical through stations you might never want to listen to. And of course it has an aerial for finer reception. You can over-ride the automatic tuning and do this manually as well.It also has DAB + - the quality of DAB is not deemed good enough, and many countries now use DAB +. It is by all accounts likely that the UK will follow suit, so this radio looks to that futureThough the size is small - far less than the length and width of an adult hand, the volume possibility is not. Far too loud on the max for comfortable listening. Option for listening through its own loudspeaker or through earphones (not provided)Technology for this sort of this has really moved on. I have a much older (and larger) supposedly `travel'/on the move radio. Not only the sound quality but also portability is infinitely beneath this Sony.A couple of nice touches - you can set a sleep function if you choose to use this as a lull you to sleep radio, and it will switch itself off after a period of time. There is a little clip on the back which enables it to stand securely.When you pick up the package it comes in, you will be shocked to see how heavy it is, and you may raise an eyebrow on `portability' - however, most of the weight is taken up with a veritable recycle bin's worth of instruction manuals printed in a Babel Tower of languages. They almost weigh more than the radio itselfI'm disappointed that it doesn't come with a case, which would have been a sensible requirement for something which is likely to be slipped into a pocket for on the move radio listening, nor does it come with earphones. Star docked only for those omissions

21.9.2015

When I saw the small box that this radio arrived in I figured that it was quite small, but upon opening the box and seeing that it was two-thirds full of instructions and cable I then realised that the radio was even smaller than I had thought. At only 11.5 x 6 x 2.5 cm it really is pocket sized but it features a decently tall aerial and a pop-out stand which means that when you want to use it you can still get good results. Even the volume of sound is quite impressive for such a small unit and although there is some noticeable distortion when it gets louder it does cope quite well for its size. However, the built-in speaker is a bit on the tinny side meaning that bass heavy tracks can sound unusual to say the least.

23.2.2016

I purchased a Sony XDR-P1DBP DAB/FM radio from Amazon following positive reviews on the Amazon site and on review sites.I was looking for a small, portable radio with the latest DAB features which was well designed and small, to complement a DAB radio I already own which lives in the bathroom.The XDR comes in a surprisingly small package, most of which is the multi-language handbooks Sony's products ship with - which went straight in the recycling bin. The radio took up less than half of the packaging which seems a bit of a waste when it comes to shipping around the world. It comes with a micro-USB lead but no charger - not an issue for me as I seem to have hundreds of them,

17.9.2015

Sony make some excellent radios – I've owned quite a few over the years – and this little DAB radio is up to the usual high standard. I rather fell out of love with the DAB radio system a few years ago when I switched to mainly Internet radio for listening to digital radio at home – better choice with better quality! However, once away from home that is less easy to do and I have a Sony DAB radio in the car for keeping up with 6Music and few other stations not on FM. The Sony in the car performs much better than I had expected from DAB so I was pleased when invited to try out this little pocket model from Sony.This XDR-P1DBP model is much better than some older DAB radios I've used in the past and punches well above it's small size.

20.1.2017

I am absolutely delighted with m Sony XDR-P1DBP Pocket radio.I bought this to take with me to hospital, I needed a small DAB radio and this had the added bonus of using USB to charge it so I can use the same charger as my phone and save lugging round yet another adapter.Sound from the integral speaker is really very good for speech or music. It would not fill a room, but not far off. Some have complained that volume from head phones does not go loud enough. I’ve tried 4 sets of phones and volume on two was very low, but the others were fine. The best were some Sennheiser on ear headphones and the others that were fine were some cheap Philips ones.

2.3.2019

Tamany i pes (170gr) ideal per portar-la a la butxaca o per escoltar al llit. l'àudio es boníssim pel tamany que te, oblida't del típic altaveu de ràdio petita. Tots els comandaments son botons així que as de canviar una mica el xip si vens de les típiques ràdios analògiques. No la recomano a persones grans que vulguin simplicitat d'ús. Es un gran plus que tingui 3 botons d'accés directe a les emissores que més t'agradin. Aquests botons son compartits entre DAB i FM.Aquesta es la meva experiència a l'àrea metropolitana de BarcelonaDAB:La oferta es lamentable, es el regne dels fatxes: esRadio (losantos), Intereconomia, COPE, Radio Maria... Cap emissora catalana, tot son emissions des de Madrid.

19.9.2015

This is a truly superb little radio and it is exactly how I remember Sony. High quality yet very functional products.The radio is tiny! It literally fits in the palm of your hands. Well my bear paws anyway but it is very small. onething though on this point, it may be small but punches far beyond it's weight.When you first open the tiny box you are greeted by manuals in many languages that take up more space than the radio! Not sure we still need these in this day and age surely but hey ho.You get the radio and a micro usb cable. That's right, no proprietary charger or anything a regular micro usb cable so it's easily charged alongside your phone or tablet.I had the white one and it's simply lovely.

9.3.2019

I listen to radio four and four extra a lot and often fall asleep in the evenings while listening. Also a bit of radio 3, classic fm and every so often 2 and local radio. It's a tiny radio, so don't expect any bass. It makes a good fist of projecting the frequencies it can produce though, without being uncomfortable to listen to.So...The speaker is brilliant for the size. The reception is fantastic. The battery lasts ages and recharges via micro usb. It's a piece of cake to operate. It has a 15, 30, 45 and 60 minute sleep function. Three presets and an FM function if you want to listen to non DAB radio (and save battery as a happy coincidence).

17.9.2015

Remember those small tinny sounding little transistor radios of years ago? Well this is nothing like those. Just how Sony have managed to get such a big sound from such a small speaker is beyond me. When I first switched it on I could not believe the quality of sound that came through - WOW.Straight from the box with some charge in the battery, I switched it on and it immediately tuned itself in through DAB. I extended the aerial to make sure I had the best signal, and within a very short period it had set itself up - brilliant. I then chose ClassicFm (my favourite station) and was blown away by what I heard. The radio is small, it fits into the palm of your hand (or pocket)

25.9.2017

I was looking for a DAB radio with a sleep timer which the majority seem to lack. This radio has a sleep timer and so much more.Reception:The aerial normally lies horizontally along the top of the radio. It can be unclipped, hinged upwards and extended but I have largely found this to be unnecessary in my area. It receives the DAB signal in places I have seen others fail. I have driven the length of the M1 - aerial extended 2 sections - without loss of signal. It has a key lock and easily fits in a pocket - In a good reception area with an attached earphone - it can be played ‘on the go’. It receives FM as well as DAB. Dedicated preset buttons can be set to 3 stations in each mode and more presets are available via the LED screen.Audio Quality:A boom box it is not.

13.9.2016

Having something of a passion for portable DAB radios (following a passion for all portable radios), I can say without question this is the best thus far. It tears strips of the previous benchmarks (Sangean DPR 34 and 36 (which has MP3 playback and the Robert Sports DAB 2/3). You would have expected Sony to have produced this long ago - the SW100 remains even today the most remarkable portable ever produced - and the most beautiful).but there is a single problem. There is a design fault with the on/off rocker switch. Be very very careful and treat it with care. I do not know whether this is a fault of a batch - but I have had a few and it looks like it is a solder issue.

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