Zero Magazine - 19 September 2005
"there's not much it can't do"
Known Virus Alert!
Except this time, the bug is most welcome. This fine looking piece of kit is the Bug from PURE Digital. I've had one for about two weeks now and it's simply taken over from the regular radio around here - there's not much it can't do, unless you're really into listening to an awful signal that breaks up in the middle of your favourite song - it doesn't do that.
This is one serious piece of small equipment. Touch of a button, hack into your favourite digital station. Like a song.you can rewind and hear it again! Really like the song? You can record the damn thing. With some of the nations best digital rock stations streaming in, it's damn near essential to get yourself hooked up with one of these.
The Bug comes in white or graphite and is the most advanced DAB radio on the market. This is the future of radio, and while the Bug will set you back a mere £130, there are stacks of other designs around.
Winner of the group test - 10/10
This strange little alien-type creature is packed full of features. As well as standard alarm functions, it can also pause, rewind and record live radio, playback MP3 files and the display shows scrolling artist, song title, news, sports results and more
Midland Mainline Magazine) Spring 2005
We’ve got The Bug
What an earth is this? It looks like it’s come straight out of Star Trek. But on closer inspection it turns out to be a rather comely DAB radio named The Bug. Designed by Wayne Hemingway, it boasts crystal-clear reception, and you can also pause, rewind and record live radio.
But that’s not where the Bug’s story ends. The manufacturers call it the most fully-featured DAB radio on the market - and they’re not joking. You can record to SD card, convert songs to MP3 or plug in a USB cable to share music files with your PC. Even the alarm function shows attention to detail, allowing you to choose weekday and weekend settings, different alarm times and specific stations. It’s a lovely bit of gear, proving The Bug really is beautiful.
GADGHITS! - Our Guide to top toys for 2005
Gadget-crazy Brits were given millions of trendy toys as presents this Christmas. But as they spend today figuring out how to work their new mobiles and computers, even more advanced models will be hitting the shops in January.
Techno-heads are already ordering the latest hand-held consoles and must-have robots as the technology boom continues apace.
Here, we give our guide to the hottest gadgets for 2005.
The Bug - the hottest selling digital radio on the market. It looks space-aged and guarantees a hiss-free sound. Cory said "Digital radio is booming and The Bug is very popular"
Business Life (British Airways Magazine) - November 2004
These Wayne Hemingway-designed DAB radios are in big demand. Stick to simply tuning in to the greater range of programming that digital radio offers if you wish, but we recommend you experiment with the instant rewind function so that you can hear a great song again or replay the end of the sports bulletin you just missed. This limited edition radio even has timeshift recording much like programmable TV.
Bugged Out!
The Bug DAB Radio
Hover cars and personal jet-packs may be some way off (unless your name’s Matt Bellamy) but PURE’s new digital radio, the Bug, is one sign that we’re living in The Future. Designed by former Red or Dead fella Wayne Hemingway to look like some kind of benign service droid (complete with blinking bug eyes), now you can nod off to the mellifluous Manc witterings of Mark Radcliffe on Radio 2 and wake up to XFM’s Christian O’Connell. Or listen to a football commentary on 5 Live and pause the action when the pizza man arrives at the door. Or - courtesy of the Bug’s secret weapon, an SD memory card - set a timer to record your favourite band in session, then hook the radio up to your PC and upload the tracks to your iPod. Frankly, it couldn’t be much more desirable if it came with a special plug-in to make you a cup of tea in the morning.
Love bug: one day, all radios will look like this
Are you bored of wood -effect digital radios? So were PURE Digital, which is why they've got together with Red or Dead designer Wayne Hemingway to create something different. The end result is The Bug, a wacky design that looks like the cuts animated robot out of a 1960's Disney space adventure. Even down to the LCD 'face' on a flexible silver neck, that can point in whatever direction you like. We think it looks great, but the Bug is about more than just style. Great design, top build quality, excellent range of features, and all for a decent price. If you're looking for a digital radio, then this is the one to buy.
PURE Delight
This Wayne Hemingway-designed stunner is purely and simply the coolest radio we've ever seen here at Nuts. It's a DAB tuner, meaning you can access hundreds of digital stations at the touch of a button, many of which are exclusive to the up-and-coming high-quality format. You can also rewind, and even record live radio, so you need never miss the football scores or the name of a song again.
The Sky's the limit
It's not just the freaky looks that make the Bug DAB digital radio from PURE stand out. It lets you pause or rewind live radio, Sky+ style, and record tracks to a memory card. Not cheap at £150, but brilliant enough to be worth the extra cash.
Mail on Saturday 29th May 2004
"We can't get through the week without... listen to your favourite songs on The Bug, designed by Wayne Hemingway, a new digital radio that can pause, rewind and record programmes."
Nobody had livened up DAB radio like PURE Digital, with a slew of highly potent products. So eyes wide open when a fancy pants new portable model, co-designed with ex-fashionata, Wayne Hemingway, lolloped into view.
It contains some genuinly interesting ideas... like a buffer function for pausing radio, and an SD card slot for playing MP3s or stashing recordings. There's even a USB connection for downloading your recorded radio onto a computer...for personal use, says Wayne.
"[The Bug} contains some genuinly interesting ideas...like a buffer function for pausing radio, and an SD card slot for playing MP3s or stashing recordings"
Products like PURE Digital's Bug are simply impossible not to love. The DAB stereo radio with it's built-in speakers is familiar technology; easy to tune and use, and offering great sound. But the Bug adds what all radio listeners have been waiting for; continuouis audio recording to a built-in mini hard drive. This allows you to pause and replay live radio, much as you can TV with a DVD-RAM recorder. Crucially, the Bug also has a timer so you can record up to two hours of radio; plus a slot for an SD card and a USB port, so you can then save recordings or back them up to your PC in MP3 format.
The Barbarella-style retro-designed Bug comes in both white and graphite flavours. It also features a headphone socket, stereo line output, telescopic aerial and an external power supply adaptor. ... the Bug is so cute as to be irresistible.
"Products like PURE Digital's Bug are simply impossible not to love...easy to tune and use and offering great sound"
It's Digital radio, Jim, but not as we know it
Just as we were starting to get bored with digital radios and their wood effect finishes, along comes PURE Digital with this brilliantly quirky design.
The company has teamed up with Wayne Hemingway, the original designer behind the Read or Dead fashion label, to create The Bug - and the result certainly gets the thumbs up from us. This wacky little device is all about fun, and we just love the way the LCD is perched at the end of that gooseneck stand above the main unit.
The Bug's not just about looks, though - it's also the Sky+ of the radio world.
You can pause and rewind live radio to a cache of built-in flash memory, buffering between 5 and 12 minutes of audio according to the broadcast quality of the radio station. There's also an SD card slot, as well as enabling you to play MP3s, can be used to record tunes as you hear them or set up timer events to record whole shows in advance.
Recordings are made in MPEG-2 format, the same one used for digital radio transmissions. Unfortunately there's no built-in way to convert these to MP3.
Nevertheless, sound quality is decent for the price, and you get nice touches such as a USB port so you can read the SD memory card directly from your PC.
Overall, we loved The Bug. It's quirky appearance, sensible price and cool range of features make it a winner.
Performance 4/5 stars
Value 5/5 stars
T3 Total 5/5 stars
ONCE in a while a gadget comes along that really takes your breath away.
After all, there’s only so many credit card-sized digital cameras or matchbox-sized MP3 players that a man can take.
So a gold star goes to PURE DIGITAL for making me sit up and stare lovingly at THE BUG.
This amazing looking DAB radio has been designed by none other than Red Or Dead supreme Wayne Hemmingway, and boy does it show.
There’s certainly no retro-style front panel here like most of the DABs currently on sale.
Put this in your home and it will fast become one of the family - in fact, with its blinking eyes on the large display, you sometimes have to remind yourself it’s not another pet.
As you’d expect from a DAB out of the Pure Digital stable, this machine really does the business.
There are plenty of presets to store your favourite channels, a display capable of showing off all the track info you need to know and alarms a plenty to ensure you are blasted out of the sack every morning in time for work.
But what makes this leaps and bounds ahead of the rest is the fact you can record directly from the DAB radio onto an SD memory card - one comes bundled with it.
You’re even able to timeshift your shows just like with Sky+ and that means you can pause live radio while you make a phone call or answer the door and get straight back to where you left off without missing a beat.
Plus, if you didn’t catch the latest news headlines or traffic updates, you can rewind the broadcast to stay bang up-to-date.
The only annoying thing I’ve found while using mine is the five-way button controlling most of the functions does take a bit of getting used to.
Every time you try and press it in the middle to select, there’s a bit too much rock ‘n’ roll.
But at £149, this is a real audio bargain that no home should be without and rightly gets a well-deserved Gizmo 10 out of 10.
Just remember, The Bug is not just for birthdays or Christmas - it’s for life!
Digital Future safe in the hands of the The Bug
It must be along time anyone thought of radios as fun or even sexy, but The Bug by PURE Digital, could change all that.
For a start off it was designed by Wayne Hemingway of Red or Dead fame and seems to owe more to ET and Star Wars than the traditional boxy trannie with a tuning dial.
The head is on a flexible stalk so can be set at a jaunty angle or be given a quizzical or inquiring look and, when set with a display of a pair of large eyes blinking and glancing around, it could almost have been sold as a techno pet.
The outside is impressive enough but inside PURE have taken a full featured DAB radio and tweaked it to give both digital recording and the ability to pause and rewind live broadcasts.
Rather like Sky+ has changed TV viewing habits, The Bug could do the same for radio. It constsntly stores up to 12 minutes of audio and text on whatever station you are listening to. Hit pause while you answer the phone or door and you can carry on fron where you left off up to 12 minutes later.
The Bug has everything we have come to expect from DAB digital radios. It has a large, three line, white on blue display and utilises a six button menu option system ,which are used to access everything from the ten memory presets to choosing one of six equaliser settings.
The sound quality from the twin speakers is superb with plenty of depth and tone but if you want to go further there are analogue and optical stereo outlets as well as aheadphone socket.
A price of £149 takes it out of the impulse, fun buy range for most people but it is a fine, solid radio with a lot of character and style and state of the art features you will find no other model. Have a play and you will be hooked.
What Hi-Fi Sound And Vision July 2004
Are you seduced by the Bug's fizz?
This unusual creation is The Bug, a digital radio spawned from a collaboration between PURE Digital and Red or Dead designer Wayne Hemingway.
Performance is good: even via the extending rear-mounted aerial, reception is crisp and clean, locking onto stations quickly after a rapid initial auto-instillation...in the main, the sound is acceptable...it scores well on the convenience front, with a host of features designed to make your life easier.
The scrolling display is a real boon, because The Bug's unusual design allows for a far larger LCD than is typical for a product in this class. Another unique touch is that the LCD can be pivoted towards you suing that flexible 'neck'. Is that enough to tempt you?
4/5 Stars
It’s safe to say that there’s never been a DAB radio, or indeed any radio, quite like this one. The look comes courtesy of one-time Red Or Dead design guru and media gadabout Wayne Hemingway but though it’s obviously meant to be fun (check out the animated bug eyes on the display when you switch it on), there’s some serious thinking going on behind the insectoid façade.
First though, the look. While it certainly has plenty of the “what the hell is that?” factor, it’s actually very practical - in some respects. The poseable display gives much greater flexibility than most kitchen DABs can offer, allowing you to read any available station information from eye-level or above (or even below) depending on how the fancy takes you. The neck seemed stable enough during our relatively short test period, but at this point there’s no telling how long it will remain firm. It comes in two colours - snow white or charcoal black, either of which should go with pretty much any décor.
The large display offers the usual DAB staples of station and text but also a few extras, namely time, volume and signal level, EQ setting and alarm, all viewable without the need for additional button pressing (more options are available by pressing the info button). There are six preset buttons on the sides of the display which grant access to ten preset stations (one button scrolls between 1-5 and 6-10). Presetting a station is easy - just press the button while you’re tuned to a station and it’ll stay until you choose to replace it.
Besides the look, the Bug’s other big idea is recording. But not just plain old vanilla real-time recording, oh no. You can do that of course, and record to an SD memory card that slots into the back of the device (not supplied - boo!). You can also set the timer (the Bug doubles as an alarm clock) to record a programme that’s on later, but the real trick is the ReVu feature that allows you to record or replay radio that’s already happened. As the radio plays, the Bug automatically stores it as it passes through, replacing the data every five minutes. Not a lot of time, but perfect if you hear a song and decide you want to record it from the start. It’s also handy if you’re interrupted during an important broadcast, the FA Cup Final, say - you can pause the broadcast and come back to it after you’ve answered the phone/door/call of nature. It all happens with the touch of a button too - full marks for usability.
With all this technology going on, it would be easy to overlook the stereo speakers, disguised as bug eyes on either side of the base unit. They’re twin 3in drivers which give decent (for a kitchen radio) resolution but struggle at high volume, especially with bass-heavy material. Incidentally, there’s an EQ option with six settings to suit your music tastes, but the effects are fairly subtle.
There’s more potential too, with an optical digital socket which will allow you to download future software updates, a stereo line out for connecting to your hi-fi, optional aerial and DRC (dynamic range control) function which boosts elements of a broadcast to make it easier to hear. So far, only BBC Radio 3 broadcasts a DRC signal but, as with most DAB options, the Bug has it covered.
Verdict
It’s fun, it’s groovy, and it’s got more hi-tech bases covered than an AIBO with an iPod, including time-shift record (quite literally, since it can start recording a tune after it’s already been broadcast). Which all goes to make the £150 price point seem not too outrageous. If you’re a stickler for sound quality, there are DABs with better speakers out there, but if you want to stand out from the crowd, even when you’re in your kitchen, this is the one to go for.
Dundee Evening Telegraph (supplement) 11th June 2004
It don't look like no normal radio, and it certainly don't behave like one. In a world populated with DAB digital radios encased in fake teak, The Bug comes as something of a revelation.
Designed by Wayne Hemmingway, of Red or Dead fame, it's very much from the love-it-or-hate-it school of design. We must confess to being rather taken with its quirky looks, which the illustration here doesn't really do justice to. It has to be seen in real life to be appreciated fully. From the side and with aerial fully extended, it looks less like s bug and more like Dr Who's mechanical mutt K-9.
But look closely at the control panel, and you'll see something very odd. A pause button? On a radio? Surely that's a mistake. But relax, this is no error. You can infact, pause and even rewind live broadcasts. Very, very useful if the tranquil world of The Archers is constantly shattered by the phone calls.
The Bug is very easy to set up, and will automatically tune itself. Hopefully you should get more than 20 stations and there's an option to store your 10 favourites for easy access.
One area in which The Bug is deceptive is sound quality. Somehow, you'd expect such an odd looking device to be rather tinny. Well, don't be fooled.
The stereo speakers are top notch, producing a full and clear sound. You may even get better results, though, by hooking it up to your hi-fi.
VERDICT: Get The Bug and revolutionise your radio listening.
Digital Home, July 2004 - Editor's Choice Award
The prevailing trend in digital radio design recalls the wood-clad receivers of yore. Britain's PURE Digital is a leading proponent of this with it's EVOKE and Tempus ranges. Now it has swapped one retro style for another - one fashioned after pulp sci-fi. Available in white or black, and with it's display headpiece on a bendy neck, The Bug looks like Darth Vader's alarm clock..
The stereo reception is robust and crackle-free, of course, across all digital stations and the sound quality is fine..
..its great to have this TiVo-style feature on a DAB radio. These excellent features should appear in future DAB radios but for now, if you like its unusual insectoid design, the PURE has ensured that there's more to this radio than meets the eye.
VERDICT
It's retro space-age looks might suggest this is little more than a gimmick, but under the zany exoskeleton lies a deceptively sophisticated DAB radio with innovative timeshifting abilities.