Roberts solarDAB radio Print
Gadgets
Written by Danny Penman   

This solar powered digital radio from Roberts is a little gem. It sounds wonderful and can power itself entirely from the sun – perfect if you’re an eco-nut like Newsmonster or just like the idea of a radio powered by free electricity.

First and foremost, the sound quality is surprisingly good from the radios small 1-watt speaker. Sound quality, alas, depends on the broadcasters’ bandwidth. Generally speaking with a decent station such as BBC Radio One or Radio Four, the radio sounds sweet as a nut. If the broadcasters are rationing the DAB bandwidth (as they often do) then the radio sounds correspondingly poor. You can hardly blame that on Roberts though. 

Does the solar panel on the radio work? Yes it does. There's a little sliding scale that appears on the display when the product is exposed to usable sunlight, with the number of bars displayed representing the amount of power being delivered by the unit’s solar panel. Roberts says if less than half the ten bars are showing, then there's enough power being provided to assist the unit’s rechargeable batteries, and the radio will operate for longer than it would if just relying on the rechargeable batteries alone.

If more than half the bars are lit up then the solar panel can power the radio on its own and have some juice left over to recharge the batteries too. If all the bars are lit, well, you're laughing. When the radio’s batteries are fully charged then they’ll power the radio for about 20 hours or so.

In out long-term test the solar panel managed to power the radio al through a dismal British winter with only one top up charge from the mains. So the solar panel provided almost enough juice for an hours listening every day throughout the entire winter. We thought that was very impressive.

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