RobertsRevival PETITE FM/DAB/DAB+ Digital Radio with Bluetooth, Duck Egg

I bought this radio to listen to Radio4 in the bathroom of a morning.So my requirements was something with excellent battery life, good sound quality for a medium sized room and would be nice to be able to play podcasts over Bluetooth when I fancy a wallow in the bath.So as is traditional, I'll lead with my Pros:1) I knew it was 'small', but I was quite taken aback by how small it actually was. It's exceptionally cute and feels very well made. Feels like a small pleather brick in your hand.2) Sounds amazing. Rich, but balanced. That "Bass radiator" isn't just marketing - sounds way better than the Sony its replaced, despite that having a speaker at least twice the diameter.3) Battery life is indeed great.My Cons (not deal-breakers, but every possible annoyance I could think of):1) As has been mentioned by others, "the controls are wrong". I'd have liked the wheel click to turn on/off and turning it to adjust the volume (or cycle through pre-sets). Then leave the buttons around it to secondary uses like changing the station, saving pre-sets etc.Instead volume and power are on the buttons around the dial. I'm never going to use the part of the UI that actually feels nice and tactile.2) But maybe I'm not the target user, maybe they were targeting the user that likes flicking between their favourite radio stations?Again - they failed. Spinning the dial does let you choose radio stations, but presents a long list of *all* stations. You can set presets for the stations that you like, but to find them you have to hold (not push) the dial button down, then click again to choose preset option, then scroll through your preset and click to select it. My best guess is that they designed the UI to get people listening as simply as possible (labelled buttons for power & volume, and traditional tuning knob to change station) - but surely presets, along with volume and power should be the quickest things to get to. Feels like this was designed to be given to your aged grandmother who likes the Roberts name, and doesn't like menus.Just clicking the button just changes the display info for the station (something you're surely going to do less often than switching between presets)3) You need to select bluetooth mode, to connect using bluetooth.Minor annoyance, but I'm used to a Pure clock radio which when I connect my phone to it, guesses I might want to listen to bluetooth (and when I disconnect, goes back to whatever it was doing before).The Roberts makes you click to choose a bluetooth input first, and then allows the connection.i.e. If I'm wallowing in the bath with my phone, and The Archers comes on, I need to click a button on the radio to play a podcast, and then cycle through the inputs again to get it back to playing the radio afterwards.4) Radio doesn't get that loud. 70% volume is perfect for my bathroom - but this isn't a "large room filling" bluetooth speaker (not that it ever pretended to me).5) The external aerial is a piece of wire that plugs in on a phono-jack. I don't need an aerial at all as I've got decent DAB reception - but I can't think of a good reason they didn't go with a telescoping metal aerial. If I leave the wire attached, it looks a bit messy. If I remove it, I'm worried I'm going to lose it. Would have much prefered to just have a metal aerial tidily tucked and attached on the back, which I could extend many years later if I need to.6) Micro-USB recharge socket and it takes 6 hours to recharge. USB-C could have been faster and is what anything I've bought recently uses.7) Doesn't have any sound output, apart from the speaker (can't listen on BT earbuds or plug it into external speakers). It does have an aux-in jack, but I'm bemused as to what this might be used for (unless you're still rocking a cassette walkman)8) Can't get time displayed full-screen (it just sits in little type in the top corner). Would have been a nice option for me as a bathroom radio, as I know what I'm listening to.9) Text scrolls *very* slowly, and no option to speed this up in settings (surely that wouldn't have been too hard?)Please don't let the far longer list of cons put you off - I gave this 5 stars and love it.I bought it as it topped a lot of "which portable DAB+ to buy" lists, and it's rightly there at #1.But, thought it best to focus on the reasons why this might not be the best radio "for you".

I have been looking for a compact radio that has exceptional sound quality for sometime now. A lot of the portable radios have very tiny sound or only good voice quality but horrible music quality. I live in the USA so I can’t vouch for the Dab radio function, butthe FM stations in the Boston area all come in with a strong signal and very clear. I did however upgrade the antenna from the wire that is included to a small telescopic antenna which plugs directly into the antenna’s 3.5 mm jack on the back. There’s plenty of compact antenna’s for sale on Amazon. It’s a lot more convenient to use instead of the wire and the reception is just as good. The Bluetooth function performs very well. one thing to note is that it has 5.0 version which is the latest Bluetooth codec standard. I tested it using my high definition music player which also supports Bluetooth 5.0 Hi-Res and the sound quality was exceptionally clear and crisp with decent amounts of warm bass from the built-in radiator. The radio works exceptionally well in a corner to enhance the bass. The one feature that is missing from this unit is a headphone jack or Line out Jack to stream music to an external larger 🔊 or stereo. This radio 📻 is built very well and looks like it could take abuse from daily use for a long time. I’ve had the petite for a week now and have used it on and off a few hours every day and the battery life is very good I only had to charge it once when I first got it. I also have a Roberts revival istream3 that is the big brother to this little radio and I have been enjoying for the past three years as well. Roberts radios are known for their warm sound signature and the petite does not disappoint in that department. Just buy it you won’t regret it.

I was a bit dubious about this radio having read other people's reviews, but I absolutely love it.It's easy to set up and use. The sound quality is excellent. I live in a poor reception area but found the flexible wire aerial works fine and is very practical because it doesn't get in the way like a rigid aerial.The battery lasts ages and the radio is easy to carry around. I just charge it up like I do my phone.When you set the Sleep function, the sound fades out gradually at the set time. (Another radio I had, the sound went off suddenly which would wake me up.)The display light can be set really low so it is not intrusive, but still readable.The radio is beautiful to look at - lovely design.Full User Manual available on the Roberts website.