A little while ago, I mentioned that I was seeking a DAB digital radio with recording facilities (ideally to SD card), and WiFi.
You can buy a DAB/WiFi radio. And you can buy a DAB/SD radio. But you can’t buy one with all three. What a shame.
But because new sets are always being designed, I thought I’d write to the major manufacturers – in particular Roberts, Pure and Revo, all of whom make devices, separately that do the things I was looking for. Were they planning, I asked, to produce a device of this nature?
First the good news. The customer service or enquiry departments of all three companies replied to my emails quickly and politely.
Roberts told me that there was nothing on the drawing board, “but never say never.” So we can live in hope.
Pure told me that they didn’t offer such a device at the moment. The person who replied said he wasn’t aware of anything in the pipeline either.
Reevo told me that there wasn’t a device on the market that met my needs. I pretty much knew that. They also said that due to podcasts and listen again features, there isn’t seen as being a requirement to add recording facilities.
That’s not true, as you can rarely podcast music-based programming, and even speech podcasts have an annoying habit of disappearing after a week if they come from the BBC. Listen Again facilities are likewise limited in time of availability, and you simply can’t transfer them to your portable mp3 player without some very awkward workarounds.
Now perhaps it’s only radio anoraks like me that are interested in this kind of technology. But I had a couple of comments from other people who were also interested.
Manufacturers tend to keep quiet about new products for competitive reasons, so I’m hoping that somebody somewhere is developing such a device.