Pure Siesta Flow review

Pure has built quite a name for itself in digital radio. In the early days of DAB its radios were among the biggest sellers, and after a slow start it's trying to do the same with internet radio.

But if you were expecting its latest bedside radio - the Siesta Flow - to continue the success of previous Pure radios, you'll be sadly disappointed.

Where the Pure Evoke Flow impressed with its great sound and solid build quality, the Siesta does not.

It may look striking with its slightly curvy trapezoid shape and sloping front panel, but the build quality is more reminiscent of a radio you might buy for a tenner at Tesco than a premium product costing nearly £100.

It's light, the chassis is made entirely from cheap-feeling black plastic and the buttons on the top feel similarly tacky. Luxurious it is not.

Neither is the screen up to the quality of the Evoke - it's easy enough to read, but there's a distinct lag to text appearing on screen. And the touch-sensitive controls below and to the side of it are fiddly too.

The up/down and select controls are just too close together, turning the job of navigating through the device's already slightly confusing menu-system into a slow and painful process.

The radio is well equipped. It boasts not only internet radio over Wi-Fi, with dedicated Listen Again and Podcast menus, but also DAB/DAB+ and RDS FM radio tuners, and the ability to stream MP3, WMA and AAC tracks from a UPnP-capable media server or directly from a USB flash drive.

Pure's oddly-named The Lounge internet radio website, which enables you to search for stations and add them to the Siesta's menu system using your PC, works well too. And unlike the Evoke Flow, the Siesta comes with the facility to wake you up with internet radio, which is great for those in areas where FM or DAB receptions isn't that great. A backup tone alarm kicks in if the radio fails to connect.

But beyond this, there's little positive to say about the Siesta Flow. The aerial is a short, stubby wire that hangs out from the base of the radio, and this makes it difficult to position for a solid DAB or FM reception.

The final blow for the Pure Siesta flow is its sound quality, which despite two upwards-firing drivers is thin, tinny and anaemic. You could say that's not such a problem for a radio primarily designed to wake you up, but for the money we'd expect a lot better, and coupled with its other numerous problems it makes this one to avoid.

Author: Jonathan Bray