Roberts Elise DAB FM RDS Digital Radio - White

The customer reviews are extremely important to me when making my decision with purchases from Amazon. As a rule, I tend to start with the 1 star comments & move up to the 5 stars. I want to see whether faults or grievances have a common theme relating to the product.This particular radio was unpacked, plugged in, placed in its position where it will live in my living room (west facing). It scanned which took only a few moments. It managed to access 28 stations. (I'm in central Scotland). The "Absolute" channel began playing. Pressing the tuner 'up' arrow, I located one of the channels I preferred...nothing happened, Absolute channel continued. I persevered, but could not get the radio to switch to an alternative channel nor was I able to save any to 4 preset positions or the heart-shaped favourite. At this point I went back onto Amazon & checked the reviews. Yes...there were other customers stating this was a fault issue. I resolved I would have to pack it up & return it to Amazon, so put it back in its box, planning to repack later.A few hours passed & I went back to the radio. I decided to give it another go; took it through to the east facing kitchen & plugged it in. It repeated its scanning & a lo! A few extra channels were found beyond the original measly 28! The tuning 'up' arrow was depressed again & I hit the select button with a light touch, almost a flick...voila! The channel changed from Absolute to BBC Scotland! Next I tried to save stations onto my preset & favourite buttons, again with that light finger touch to the buttons...similar to as if I were clicking a laptop keyboard key. Yay success! I wasn't aware I had been heavy handed when I initially tried this procedure, though I had kept each button depressed whilst I waited for the acknowledgement that storing or a channel change had taken place.The sound is perfectly acceptable for a portable radio at this price point. My priority is to listen to local news & listen to plays or comedy whilst I work. (Will stick to an MP3 player if I'm craving some music with bass) I particularly like the simple roller style volume control. The edge of the thumb, or tip of a finger can move it around with ease. It's a basic, no-nonsense, no-frills radio. Its design suits me fine as its sitting on a shelved area, so the angled top means all buttons are visible without having to tip it forward to see them.So aside from the original channel changing issues I had to begin with, down to a user malfunction rather than the radio, then I can't in all honesty fault this product.

I spend a lot of time listening to the radio, and this is a good basic model. In fact, I've now bought three of them; one for the bathroom (for battery use), and two others around the house (on mains). Although it's not the DAB with the longest of battery life (other Roberts models beat it at that), it is fine for 10-15 mins a time in the bathroom, and it's ease of use makes it ideal for mains use in most locations.The sound is good, perhaps not quite enough treble (treble and bass controls would be useful for different settings), but more than adequate sound for its price. It has analogue volume control (does not go up in 'steps') which gives good control of the volume setting. It's a breeze to set up, and the pre-sets are handy so you can quickly move from one station to another, depending on your mood (or that of others).It's perhaps not the best bedside/nighttime radio as the display does not dim - but if you are not bothered by a blue glow, it would be fine for bedside use too.It looks nice too (I bought the black models) and, for the price, is probably unbeatable as a basic, no-nonsense DAB with handy features such as pre-sets and a favourite station button.

One of the things I find very helpful when I'm ordering from Amazon are the reviews and I thought I should follow up and do the same thing after receiving the Roberts Elise.My main criteria for ordering a DAB radio was that it should look and sound good and most importantly be easy to operate. I was buying this for my elderly mother and it had to be straightforward. I carefully read a few reviews of different radios and overall this seemed the best.I chose the right one! It's very nice to look at and has a good sound (ok, it's never going to compete with a stereo radio, but is nonetheless clear to listen too) and it is so easy to operate. I thought I should plug it in and tune it for my mum and all I needed to do was plug it in, switch it on and off it went, finding 54 radio stations very quickly. I saved four pre-sets for her and on the button marked with a heart as her favourite she now has Radio 2. My mum loves it. Nicely placed buttons not too near each other and a good sized and tactile volume button.Any downsides? Well apart from the radio, it doesn't have any extra features. No pausing of live radio for instance. It's no worse for it though because its main thing is simplicity and at the price it's not going to have much in the way of fancy stuff. The other thing that would be nice is if the display remained showing the last info item selected on the display. You can scroll through various info items including signal strength, bps etc, but once you switch the unit off it goes back to the first info item which is the "now playing" feature. It would be nice if it remained on time of day for instance.Aside from those little things there is nothing to fault this unit and as I said my mum loves it. Thanks to the other reviewers for the recommendation