Pure Move R3 review: Your personal DAB radio
Contributing Editor
What do you need from a personal radio?
Portability is a must for many people. You want the comfort of being able to connect to your favourite channels and shows on the move. Another crucial feature is simplicity. When you’re ready to start running on the treadmill, listening to the top 40 chart hits for that week – the last thing you want is to fiddle around with a complicated interface.
What if we told you that you could get the best of both worlds from Pure?
The Pure Move R3 is a lightweight, and easy-to-use system for people who can’t afford to compromise when it comes to buying a rechargeable DAB radio. A cute little pocket DAB+ set that can go wherever you go – the Move R3 delivers up to 15 hours of playback. What’s more, it comes equipped with noise-canceling headphones, so you can enjoy a private listening experience.
Pure Move R3 review: Design and build
The Pure Move R3 is pretty much what you would expect from a portable DAB radio.
Since it’s designed to fit in your pocket or backpack, there’s not much to the Pure R3 in terms of aesthetic appeal. At first glance, it looks a lot like an old-fashioned iPod touch, with a chunky and sleek design supported by a black-and-white digital screen and a few basic buttons. For simplicity, you also get three pre-set buttons built into the device, so your favourite stations are always just a click away.
Though the design of this rechargeable DAB radio won’t necessarily take your breath away – it’s definitely going to get the job done. The lightweight device comes with up to 15 hours of listening playback per charge, and it’s lightweight enough to fit in your pocket. Yep, even those extra-tight skinny jeans.
To us, it feels just like carrying an extra smartphone around with you. You don’t get the same kind of chunk that comes with things like the Pure Elan portable. What’s more, like your smartphone, the Pure Move R3 is designed to be taken with you wherever you go. That means that it can withstand things like bumps and knocks. The tempered glass screen is more than enough to handle the wear and tear of everyday life.
Pure Move R3 review: Features
When it come to features, the Pure Move R3 is a pretty straightforward tool. It’s not designed to be as complex and in-depth as your smartphone. You can’t browse the web on it or stream music via Bluetooth. However, you can connect to digital radio – and from a DAB portable device – what more do you want?
At a price of just under £90, the Pure Move R3 is a little more expensive than many of the other portable radios on the market today. However, you do get the heritage of the Pure brand for that price – so you might be willing to shell out a little extra. Additionally, the rechargeable battery is really handy to have. It means that you can just plug your device into the wall like your smartphone at the end of each night when you’re done with it.
Features include:
- An easy-to-use interface: The ultra-clear OLED display makes it easy to navigate through the menus and find the stations that you want.
- 3 dedicated preset buttons and 20 preset options in total
- Excellent sound with noise-cancelling headphones included
- Separate bass and tremble controls for sound adjustment
- Tempered glass for radio protection
- Rechargeable with 15 hours of battery life
- DAB+ digital radio with FM for any old-fashioned stations
- Sleep timer (in case you forget to turn it off)
- Clear display
Like all of the products from Pure, the Move R3 is designed and engineered in the UK, and it’s built by a team that knows everything that there is to know about sound. You also get the peace of mind that comes with having a three-year warranty included with your device as standard.
Pure Move R3 review: Performance
We mentioned the simplicity of the Pure Move R3 above because that was one of the first things we noticed when we started our review. The device is sleek and simple, clearly designed for the people who have spent their lives using MP3 players and iPods to swipe through their music. If you’re the kind of person who always wants to have access to the radio, then the Pure R3 can give you that.
Built for the outdoors, and with a very easy-to-use OLED display, you’ll have no problem finding the channels that you love and saving them to your preset options. Additionally, you get the benefit of DAB technology, which automatically finds and lists the stations available in your area too.
In terms of sound performance, the audio quality of the Pure R3 is very par for the course for Pure. The sound is deep and clear, just like you would expect from a Pure radio. Additionally, it’s nice to have the addition of the noise-proof headphones. However, we found that they were a little uncomfortable to wear.
It’s also worth noting that you get a lot of control over your sound quality with the Pure Move R3. You can control the bass and treble depending on what you’re listening to, which is more than you get with a lot of portable products.
We think that the Pure Move R3 is more of a must-have for consumers with a passion for radio than other portable devices. However, it’s not for the average listener.
