PURE EVOKE-1XT CHERRY REVIEW

The Evoke-1XT retains the boxy but impressive-looking wood veneer case, big front panel buttons and clear labels of the Evoke-1. The biggest single improvement is the two-line display; rather than black on green it is white on blue with a powerful backlight. Although the colours used are unusual they turn out to be readable even in strong direct sunlight and are legible from above, although at wide viewing angles the display appears black on light blue. Unchanged from the Evoke-1 are the two minor weaknesses I noted in my review then; the fixed handle - it doesn't fold into the body - and the ugly "wall wart" mains adaptor.

Tuning remains simple. Switch on, first time only wait until the digital channels are found, turn the tuning knob to scroll through the channels, press it in to select, then adjust the volume knob to suit. There is no need to change the factory default settings, although there are a number available from one button and several display options from another. The first line of the display always shows the station; the second, by default, shows scrolling text describing the current program but can display bandwidth, signal strength, date and time and more. A minor problem, now that text is being used more than it was to, for example, display the title of a piece of music as it is being played, is that scrolling is too slow and its speed cannot be changed.

There are three new functions - a clock, which is automatically synchronised with the digital time signal and is displayed by default when the Evoke-1XT is put on standby (switched off at the front panel but not at the wall), a timer and an alarm, both of which are very easily set up using turn-and-press. Although it is marketed as a kitchen radio the Evoke-1XT could be used by the bedside; there is an option to turn the display backlight off when the radio is in standby, without which it would be far too bright.

The sound quality is phenomenal; even better than the Evoke-1. It is considerably louder - useful in the kitchen where the radio might be competing with a dishwasher or washing machine - and has remarkable bass for a fairly small unit with no external speaker. I was surprised to be able to listen to a complete Radio 3 concert without becoming annoyed by the sound quality, something that has never happened before with any portable radio I have owned.

On the back of the Evoke-1XT there are the four sockets offered by the Evoke-1 - headphone, mains, analogue output and stereo speaker - plus a fifth which allows a USB cable (A-B type as supplied with printers) to be connected to install firmware updates from a connected PC; regrettably, Pure will not be providing a Mac installer. The firmware version installed is 1.0.

Overall, only trivial weaknesses and a replacement for - and improvement on - even a "good-quality" analogue radio.