Pure Move 2500 August 2011

What is the Pure Move 2500?

The popularity of digital radio is growing – albeit slowly – and if you’re currently enjoying digital-only stations at home you may want to listen when you’re out and about, too.

The Move 2500 is Pure’s latest personal DAB/FM radio. It’s smaller and lighter than Pure’s previous model - the Pure PocketDAB 1500 - and one of the most obvious changes is the controls.

Rather than dedicated buttons, it employs a slightly iPod-esque control dial. It’s a rotatable, pressable control, rather than being touch-sensitive like the iPod click wheel.

It’s intuitive to use and turns easily to adjust volume or navigate through station lists and the small knobbles on the wheel afford some grip. The centre 'select’ button is slightly raised so it’s easy to press without accidentally operating the control dial.

Looking for a digital radio? See our full lab test results for digital radios including other personal DAB/FM radios. 

What features does the Pure Move 2500 have?

With the backlight on, the screen on the Pure Move 2500 has an orange tinge.

The radio has a small LCD screen which shows battery and volume level, and the station name, as well as DAB signal strength and scrolling text associated with the broadcast when in DAB mode.

You can alter the display in the radio’s settings to show a different signal strength indicator or the broadcast data rate in place of the scrolling text.

Unlike the PocketDAB 1500, it doesn’t have textSCAN, so you can’t pause scrolling text. However, we don’t imagine many people would use this function.

The screen has a backlight which can be set as on, off or timed s it turns off a short time after you’ve used any of the radio’s controls. The screen is small, but easy enough to read in daylight even with the backlight off.

There are no preset buttons, but you can save up to 10 DAB and 10 FM stations in the preset menu, accessible by pressing the right portion of the dial and turning to wheel to scroll to the preset station you want to listen to.

Saving presets is easy. You navigate to the station you want using the main station menu – accessed by pressing the left portion of the dial – and once you’ve tuned in by pressing the centre button you can save the station as a preset by pressing the right portion of the dial, scrolling to a vacant preset slot then holding down the right portion of the dial to store it.

The radio has a sleep timer which you can set to turn the radio off after 15, 30, 45, 60 or 90 minutes.

Find out about other features available on some digital radios in our digital radio features explained guide.

Is it easy to use?

The Pure Move 2500 has a rotating dial control for navigating menus and adjusting settings.

It’s a fairly simple-to-use piece of kit with few controls.

The labelling round the dial is quite small, but once you’ve used it a few times, there’s not much to remember. If  you’re fairly familiar with portable devices you’ll probably find this a doddle to use - there aren’t lots of buried menus.

One press of the bottom section of the control dial turns the radio on - there’s around a two or three second delay from when you press the button to information appearing on the screen.

You have to press and hold the same section of the control dial for about three seconds to turn it off.

The radio's slightly curved back makes it comfortable to hold and if it’s in your pocket it’s easy to adjust the volume without looking. There’s also a hold switch on top which locks the other controls – including the volume – so nothing gets accidentally activated if the radio is bouncing around in your pocket or bag.

How does the Pure Move 2500 sound?

In-ear headphones are supplied with the radio. They’re called noise isolating because they fit into your ears and there are three different ear-bud sizes in the box so you can choose the best fit.

Initial impressions are that sound is pretty good – it's quite warm and has some sense of drama, but we’ll have to wait until we get it into our lab before we can comment on how if fairs against other radios.

You can adjust the treble and bass in the settings - great if you like to pump up the bass. Once you’ve chosen a setting it’s remembered for the next time you tune in and applied to FM and DAB radio sources.

Listening at a reasonable volume level we didn’t notice much sound leakage from the headphones, so whatever you’re listening to shouldn’t interrupt others around you.

However, after listening for a couple of hours the earphones became a little uncomfortable where one bud was resting on the ear. However, comfort is subjective and you can try turning the earpiece to a slightly different angle in your ear if it becomes uncomfortable.

There’s no clip on the headphones – so you can’t clip the cable to your jacket.

The radio comes with a rechargeable Lithium Ion battery that claims to provide around 14 hours of listening per charge and can be recharged in the radio.

What's the reception like?

Being able to receive DAB radio when you’re out is largely dependant on the DAB transmitters and signal coverage where you are.

Even in London we found reception in some areas a little glitchy – resulting in choppy sound and moments of silence. Buildings and structures have an impact on DAB signal strength and this was particularly noticeable with the loss of sound when walking into shops.

The radio has a 3.5mm headphone socket, so it’s possible to use a different set of headphones with the radio if they use the same connector, but changing the headphones may affect reception.

FM reception proved a bit better in buildings as we walked around, but even that is affected sometimes. We tried using a different set of headphones with the radio and they proved a little better at picking up the FM radio signal, but still not perfect.

Find out more about DAB coverage in our digital radio switchover explained guide.

Why should I buy it?

If you're already carrying around a smartphone, iPod or iPad, it's just one more bit of kit to cart about. 

You can stream digital radio to a smartphone, but streaming music chips away at your mobile data limit, so we can see the Pure Move 2500 appealing to people who want to listen to digital radio for long periods. 

The Pure Move 2500 sounds pretty good, but poor DAB reception in some areas of the UK, indoors and around tall buildings can rather spoil the party, so we think it's a fairly niche product. 

In our full review...

Which? puts personal, portable, tabletop and bedside digital radios to the test to find the very best radios. Tests include:

• Sound quality - Our panel of sound experts listen to and rate a variety of tracks broadcast using the lab's own DAB signal. Tracks include classical, pop, jazz and speech. They listen to the same tracks on every radio to pick out any difference - large or small. 
• Usability - Bedside radios, personal radios, portable radios and kitchen radios are all used differently, so our lab experts run through different scenarios for the radios to see how easy they are to use day to day. They also rate the ease of setting up, navigating through menus and programming presets.
• Aerial sensitivity - You can't get DAB reception everywhere in the UK because more transmitters are needed. However, our lab experts measure how weak a signal each radio can pick up, so you can get a better idea of the radios that are more likely to work without interruption where there is a DAB signal.

See our how we test DAB digital radios page for more on our testing, or try Which? today for just £1 to see the Best Buys in our digital radios reviews section.