Update: Got questions? Got a Pure Evoke Flow? Visit flowusers.com and join the community!

So, yesterday, I was lucky enough to be at the launch of a brand new radio - the Pure Evoke Flow. As a disclaimer, they laid on a nice breakfast, in a nice location, and have given me a radio to test out. But I am under no obligation to be nice to them. With that in mind…

You remember the Pure Evoke-1? The first under-£100 DAB radio, that kick-started DAB in the UK? Well, this is their first DAB/wifi radio.

It comes with the newer, eco-friendly, power adapter that you’ll be familiar with from Pure’s latest radios. It’s the same shape as the Evoke-1, but finished in a glossy piano-black (the same glossy piano-black as the back of the new iPhone 3G). It feels solidly built - there’s wood underneath all that lacquer, so it still has the lovely, sonorous sound of the Evoke. And the box it’s in is lovely - a fold-out panel on the front with loads of carefully-written detail on the product you’re about to buy. This enables what the retailer sitting next to me describes as “self-selection” - i.e. a person browsing and reading the info on the box. (Note to retailers: I would always much rather see the box rather than your in-store price cards).

The screen is good-looking - an OLED not an LCD - though the look and feel of the menus is not much changed from the older Legato II. Leave it a while and it goes into screen-saving mode (I think this is to avoid burnin); tap the snooze handle and the proper display comes back.

Turn it on, and it does a good job of setup. Switch into DAB mode for the first time, and it does an autotune to discover available stations. Switch into wifi mode for the first time, and it shows you all available wifi connections (and doesn’t bother you with WPA/WEP stuff). Enter your key and you’re in. I forgot my key a few times; it appears quite lenient.

I’ve had one wifi radio before - a very early model - so it’s not particularly fair to compare the two. But the Pure is quick; it’s incredibly easy to navigate; and it works well. There are no herarchies of menus - if you want stations in spanish playing jazz in Argentina, then it’s quick and simple to do a search for them. Some inconsistencies aside, I think Pure have done a good job with the user interface. Particularly impressive are the ’soft keys’, which change depending on the function you’re attempting to perform. The buttons are flat and unyielding - and only light up when they can be used.

DAB works as you’d expect; I haven’t tested FM reception yet. The system also plays media files from your computer (as yet untested too), but it’s The Lounge which is the cleverest thing. Instead of buying in their wifi technology from others, Pure have designed everything inhouse, including their own internet radio portal (which you’ll be able to use at www.thelounge.co.uk www.thelounge.com without a radio).

It’s difficult to explain how quick and responsive the radio is for wifi as a result; so, in the 90-second video above, you’ll see me doing the following things:

1. Turning the unit on
2. Listening to DAB (Radio 2)
3. Going to the wifi radio
4. Seeing it tune into an 80s station I’ve been listening to
5. Looking through the station directory
6. Hitting search to find Virgin Radio stations (old habits, etc)
7. Tuning in to Virgin Radio Italia
8. And finally switching it off.

It also has a few more ludicrous things: something called Pure Sounds, so you can lull yourself to sleep with natural sounds like a rainforest or a the hubbub in a small street in North London (I call the latter my slightly open window). This was excitedly pointed out in the press briefing; I don’t see the excitement, frankly. Might be interesting to accept user-produced sounds, so I can wake up to my nephew and niece playing, or to the sound of a favourite place.

I’ve not yet had a chance to play with The Lounge website, which adds some degree of personalisation to the unit (it’s currently not quite ready for us ‘press’ people to see). Pure plans click-to-buy for radio stations later in the year, and mysteriously also plans tagging (which I guess is a public commitment to the project Nick Piggott and I are working on, which is delightful).

For the techies - the unit has Linux inside it (that bit’s apparently entirely open source), and a portion of the inside gubbins runs on Pure’s own proprietary platform (which isn’t open at all). The getting-started instruction book even warns you that the initial switchon requires a little time (since the radio needs to boot). And no, you’re not getting a full manual with the unit; if the pre-production unit’s anything to go by, you’ll need to download, via PDF, the proper manual from thelounge.co.uk. It annoys me when manufacturers do this, being honest, and Pure get a wag of the finger for it.

Small irritations are that the antenna is no longer connected by an F-connector, and is screwed onto the unit (I have a roof antenna, but no, I can’t use it); that turning the unit off requires two keypresses; that the interface isn’t 100% intuitive with some inconsistencies (but you get the hang of it fairly quickly); that the set shows oily fingers easily. However, these are minor irritations, and they don’t spoil it.

The marketing man from Pure said that this was the best product they’d ever made; and I’m inclined to agree.

It’s in shops in September, and the suggested retail price is £150.

So, there I was tonight in Tesco.

(Note to US people reading: Tesco is a UK supermarket. It’s a bit like Walmart. Except it’s British. You own a set of supermarkets here too, called Asda, which are rather closer to Walmart because they’re owned by Walmart, even though they’re too embarrassed to say so up front. They’re shit. Their food is horrid, their stores are unpleasant, and they demonstrate great value food by getting women to slap their arse. Tesco is not quite as shit, and redeems itself somewhat by not asking women to slap their arse. It’s still mostly shit though.)

Welcome back. So, I was tonight in Tesco, buying important things like pizza, and some quite nice looking carrots, and some towels, and shampoo, and cat food, and cheese. Not quite in that order, otherwise I’d have walked miles.

For the new spare bedroom (it’s been empty for a few months) I idly thought it would be nice to buy an alarm clock, and a little radio - since chums who stay will probably be radio people. Then thought that it would be better to buy an alarm clock radio (see how my mind works) so I put the £2 alarm-clock back and went hunting for a clock radio.

I wanted a clock radio with DAB Digital Radio on it, naturally, and I ended up having quite a few to choose from. Including a brand new DAB Digital Radio clock radio alarm, from the Technika brand range.

No, the reason you’ve not heard of Technika is that it is, I suspect, a Tesco own-brand. It’s fug-ugly, which was one reason I noticed it, but the main reason I noticed it was that, amazingly, it was just £14.97. (It’s also available on the Tesco website, but not for that price).

£14.97 for a DAB Digital Radio. Crikey.

In the end, I bought a PURE Siesta clock radio, mainly because every product I’ve bought from Pure has been excellent quality, and Colin is a nice man.

But wow. I can remember the day when we were excited that DAB Digital Radio sets had dipped below £99.

Photo: Russell Heiman. Used under licence.
Disclosure #1: the Pure Siesta link is an Amazon link which might earn me tuppence if you bought through it. Don’t feel you have to.
Disclosure #2: Pure have given me a few DAB Digital Radio sets as a gift. I think this is the fourth Pure set that I have bought, however, and it ought to be pointed out that Pure have never, once, bought me a beer, which is a gross oversight.
Disclosure #3: I forgot to buy some milk. Gah.