Elan IR3

I've owned about a dozen internet radios in my time and this (the Pure IR3) is one of the best. The reason I like it is because it's fairly snappy, and has a much more "traditional radio" feel to it, in that it switches on fairly immediately, there are no nasty delays and no feeling of wading through treacle to select options, buffering, connecting etc. I really like the system of presets - it has 3 main presets accessible via buttons, and 12 standard presets that can be scrolled to. It's no fuss and simple to use. Sound quality is fairly good - again reminding of a transistor radio rather than a whole room experience. I found the default sound quite muddy and needed to tweak it and now I'm happy. It's not HiFi, obviously. I really like the night light. I'm often frustrated by "bright" electronic displays at night, but this one is good. The dimmer is adjustable and the "low" setting is fine for bedside use. It has 2 alarms that can be configured for weekdays and weekends with different radio stations. Perfect. It has a sleep timer adjustable in 15 minute intervals. There is no remote control, but there is an app for Android and iOS. A few gripes. I needed to "sign in" to an internet service for some reason - this was annoying and pointless, and takes away from being a device that just works. I also found that there was a big sticker over the display that was really hard to peel off and seemed utterly ridiculous. I've not tested the battery life, but should last several hours streaming. I just wish it could charge rechargeable batteries instead of needing to take them out. The device is nice and light and portable. Overall, I'm really impressed. Pure have creating a device that is more like a radio than a small computer, and is a pleasure to use. More expensive models will probably give you better sound and battery, but this is perfect for me.

My first Internet radio, which I wanted to try, as our local DAB signal strength in my bedroom is very weak. The radio is easy to set up and worked out of the box. Sometimes it does disconnect from the Internet and doesn't automatically recover. Sound is good but not HiFi quality.

Easy to use, thousands of stations that can be navigated simply with excellent menus'. The speaker is quite good, it's small enough to take anywhere, mains or battery operated. The downsides are, the earphone port is round the back, and on some of the long channel lists, the radio 'times out' when scrolling down through them, so it's difficult to get to the stations in the middle of the list. Overall I'm very happy with it and would recommend to anyone.

This is a great little radio pretty, easy to set up, quite small about the size of a paperback A5 book, good sound, easy to use. Note though that it doesn’t have DAB and it doesn’t have a Bluetooth functionality. The other problem for me as well was that it comes with a sticker over the screen which in my case it least didn’t come off in one go and I then had a lot of problem removing the residue from the sticker. This resulted in me scratching the screen of my radio trying to get off what was a useless piece of plastic in the first place - I have fed this back to Pure.

This is my review of the IR3 - not any of the other models being clumped together here. Here are the headlines! I’ll expand on these further down. So, the IR3… Fairly stylish, but is it style over substance? Encoder knob (volume/select) stiff to press so difficult one-handed operation. Screen sticker is nonsensical and left non-removable adhesive on the edge of the screen – see photo. Constant motor boat like noise at low volume settings from the speaker or with headphones on all stations Frequent Network Errors – see photo – despite constant internet connection Lost connections, for more than 30 seconds at a time, despite constant internet connection. Listen again podcasts – lost connections sometimes start from the beginning again – despite constant internet connection ‘Instructions’ very visual – minimal wording and out of date Favourites can only be edited on a third party web page with clunky and painfully slow service. Battery life not good – a third gone after 10 minutes listening. Swapping to battery from power supply by unplugging from the back sometimes causes a reset and a 50 sec wait for reboot and reconnection. Frequent freezing of controls whilst waiting for connections to start again – despite constant internet connection. Slow to boot when switched on from power down. Terrible phone app! So I’m less than impressed. Here’s the detail: The controls are laid out in a logical way but the rotary control for selection is too stiff to press which makes operation with one hand difficult as it just pushes away! I end up holding the top of the IR3 with my fingers whilst pressing with my thumb – very un-ergonomic. The first thing you have to do is remove the screen ‘protection’ sticker and, as others have pointed out, this is stuck to the screen with strong adhesive. There is a tab to pull which starts you off but you feel like you’re going to pull the display out, it’s so tough. Despite my careful and slow removal of this label, it left some unsightly adhesive on the screen which can’t be removed – see photo. At low volume settings there is audio interference from the speaker and from the headphone output. This sounds like the purring of a motor boat and spoils listening at low volumes. This happens with every station. The noise does not increase with increasing volume, so is only heard at low volume settings. I get a very frequent annoying message about network errors – see photo. This is with a constant internet connection. There is no mention of this particular error on Pure’s web site FAQ. This is simply not very professional – a frequent error message with no explanation. The IR3 very frequently loses connections, producing silence for long periods. This is with mainstream stations like BBC R4 and other, overseas stations alike. This happens despite the internet not being lost – it’s nothing to do with a lack of internet – seemingly just the station network not keeping up. Sometimes this makes the controls ‘freeze’ as the IR3 attempts to re-connect. Some ‘listen again’ content is available in the form of Podcasts. You have no control over these ‘listen again’ podcasts – no pause etc. These podcasts also suffer from frequent lost connections, again despite no loss of internet and sometimes just start from the top again when this happens! The double sided instruction sheet is minimally worded and heavy on visual instructions – that doesn’t really bother me – but the instructions for adding ‘favourites’ is out of date and doesn’t echo what the IR3 displays. Which brings me on to ‘Favourites’… You can only add or delete favourites using a third party web site. You press help at the bottom of the station list on the IR3 and you get a one off code and a web link which stays on your screen for just over 10 seconds – press the back button to see it again. This web link is not the one referred to in the instructions, so the instructions appear to be out of date. The 3rd party web site is slow and clunky and requires you to make an account or sign via social media etc. There is no way to add to your favourites without this web site and at one point my favourites, that took me an hour to make, were randomly completely wiped. Please note I’m not referring to pre-sets here – these can be stored on the IR3 directly. The IR3 appears to eat batteries. I noted that the battery indicator lost a third over a ten minute period – this could just be a poor battery display of course – but it makes me nervous to use the IR3 as a ‘portable’ unit. The IR3 powers off completely when switched off on battery power (which you’d expect of course) but takes a slow 50 seconds to boot and re-connect to your internet when switched on again. Swapping from power supply to battery power by removing the connector from the back sometimes causes a reboot, so choose your moment to do this e.g. not halfway through a podcast! The phone app ‘Pure Select’ is nothing short of appalling and quite possibly the worst app I have ever installed on my iPhone! Frequently unable to load station lists, sometimes showing lists as ‘empty’ then populating to an extent and stopping. The reviews for this app are pretty poor, which I can understand. The other app referred to - ‘UNDOK’ does not find my IR3 so heaven only knows what that’s for. There is no explanation of the difference between the 2 apps in the instructions. So I’m un-impressed. The IR3 shows so much promise in Pure's blurb, but I found the listening experience rather miserable with the numerous un explained network problems it has and the very poor phone app. Packing it up for return – I’ll forget Pure and look at Roberts internet radios next

Good radio and easy to set up. Not the quickest of startups around 90 seconds for it to power up and log onto network before it plays Battery usage quite high, it is in the bathroom so can't use the supplied plug, pity it can't take and recharge rechargeable batteries.

Easy to use, handy way to listen to Internet radio stations. Decent sound quality. Portable but no handle. Despite podcast selection option I haven't managed to access any podcasts, but plenty of other stuff to listen to worldwide. Clear display, lack of DAB or FM may be disappointing to some, but I haven't missed either using this quality piece of kit.

Radio parfaitement fonctionnelle, d'utilisation simple. La mise en route se fait quasi automatiquement et n'est pas difficile ( la notice est multilingue, sommaire mais à peu près suffisante avec quelques tâtonnements). La connection avec une radio est obtenue très rapidement. La possibilité de stocker 12 radios en favoris est pratique et suffisante. Quant au son, il est proprement superbe pour une radio si petite. Ce produit répond parfaitement à mes attentes reste à voir sa longévité...

Perfecto

Aucun problème particulier de mise en route ou de synchro. Toutes les fonctions marchent parfaitement, y compris l'écoute des morceaux stockés sur mon serveur NAS. Les commandes sont suffisamment intuitives. Le son n'est pas HiFi, mais suffisamment bon pour tous types de sons (et il y a un equalizer). Si on débranche l'alim (sans piles), on ne perd pas ses presets. Un seul regret : les piles s'usent à une vitesse impressionnante. Ok pour un dépannage d'un quart d'heure, mais Inutilisable en "transistor mobile". Prévoir éventuellement des piles rechargeables.

MUY PRACTICO.

Je voulais tester une radio internet d'appoint avant d'acheter un tuner adaptable à ma chaîne HI FI : parfait. Radio très simple à connecter à ma box. Il suffit de suivre les indications de l'ecran et le mode d'emploi. Recherche facile des stations, mémorisation possible de 12 stations. Problème de consommation des piles réglé en diminuant la luminosité de l'écran, et en utilisant des piles rechargeables, plutôt que de prendre l'adaptateur fourni. Très bonne expérience, j'ai acheté ensuite un adaptateur tuner pour ma chaîne. Par contre, option "spotify" pas très convaincante....il faut acheter l'option payante si on veut lier la radio au téléphone pour piloter la liste de musique spotify.