Recommendations
As well as a radio that you can use easily, you will want one that sounds good. Below we tell you how easy it was to use the three radios rated very good or good for sound quality, and about three others that were easy to use for some people, but produced poorer sound. These were all tabletop size so finally we pick out the best of the three hand-held radios on test.
Best all rounder
Only one radio - the Roberts RD-8BW Duet (£137) - had good sound and was easy to use by blind and partially sighted people and those with limited dexterity or strength. It is recommended. It was designed with the British Wireless for the Blind Fund, which probably explains why it came out so well. Reception was very good and it was easy to tune with its distinctive rotary dial. Stations could be tuned in automatically as you scrolled through them. It had five preset buttons (for DAB and FM stations) that were large, illuminated and easy to set. It was the only tested radio with illuminated buttons. Its display was larger than most (24 x 98mm) though the screen was reflective and was obscured when you were using some controls. It was heavy (2.6kg) to carry but the handle was comfortable and spread the weight well. It had a mono speaker though played stereo through headphones. It was one of the three radios on test that allowed you to pause and rewind live radio.
Worth thinking about
The only other tested radio with good sound that was reasonably easy to use is the Dualit DAB kitchen radio DKR-1 (£146). Reception was good and it was judged easy to use for people with impaired dexterity and satisfactory for blind and partially sighted people. Its screen was larger than most (25 x 75mm) and displayed good size characters, although you had to look at it from the right angle to reduce glare. It was not easy to find stations without using the presets (5 for DAB and 5 for FM), but these could be easily set. The tuning and volume controls were too smooth but needed only a light touch. The radio had a mono speaker but played stereo through headphones or external speakers and could be connected to a hi-fi system. It could be used as a clock radio alarm and had a built-in kitchen timer. It was heavy to carry (2.5kg) with a broad, flat handle.
Not the best sound, but some easy to use controls
Three other radios were found to be easy for people with dexterity impairments although they did not have the best sound.
The Panasonic RF-D5 (£45) was judged satisfactory for reception and sound, it was cheap and its controls were a good size and needed little force to use. Stations could be tuned in automatically as you scrolled through them. This radio had 10 presets for DAB and FM stations that could be fairly easily set and large buttons with raised markings, but close together. It had a mono speaker and its headphone socket gave only a mono signal too, from one earpiece.
The Roberts RD-76 Rambler (£63) had poor sound but good reception and buttons that were well placed and very easy to operate. This radio was comfortable to carry with a good handle and it weighed just 1.5kg. Its main drawback was that it was not easy to find stations without seeing the display and had only one preset so might suit if you usually listen to the same station. It had a mono speaker but would give stereo sound through headphones.
The Teac R-3 (£94.96) had very good reception and satisfactory sound. Its buttons were well spaced and the dials easy to turn. It was uncomfortable to carry - the handle was thin for its weight. Stations could be tuned in automatically as you scrolled through and there were five presets for DAB and FM stations that were easy to set. It had a mono speaker but played stereo through headphones.
For carrying around outdoors
Of the three smaller radios that could be hand held, the Roberts RD-59 Gemini 59 (£50) is worth considering. It was rated satisfactory for ease of use by blind, partially sighted and dexterity impaired people. Reception was very good, sound quality was poor compared to the better scoring tabletop radios, but adequate for its size and for listening to speech. Finding stations was easy - it could be set to tune in automatically as you scrolled through them and it had 10 presets, five for DAB and five for FM stations.
Voice output (Pure Sonus 1-XT)
This radio speaks station names and other information to help you use the radio. It is no longer made but we checked out its voice feature because of the advantages it has for blind and partially sighted people.
You could choose how much information it spoke - full speech, time only, stations only, time and stations or switch off the speech completely. Set to full speech it stated the station it was tuned to and gave the station names as they were scrolled through. It also read out the screen display on the menu which made it possible to set alarms without sight. When setting a preset the voice confirmed that it had been set, and when a preset station was selected the voice confirmed the number and station.
A CD-ROM came with the radio which included the instruction manual in pdf format. There was also an audio CD of the instructions that could be played in an ordinary CD player.
One downside of the product was that the voice system used a pre-loaded library of words. This included station names, which meant that stations that had appeared since the Sonus was launched were not included and ones that had disappeared were still listed. No software updates are available to solve this problem.
To date this is the only DAB radio with speech so it is unfortunate that it is out of production. It is available as long as stocks last .
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