Pure has launched a ground breaking digital radio into the Australian market, just in time for it to be shown at this week’s national radio conference. The Sensia features a large touch screen, the first of its kind for digital radio, and has a range of features that combine to add a new offering to the Pure product range.
The Sensia is the world’s first high resolution DAB+ digital and internet-connected radio with a colour touch-screen which delivers an intuitive user-interface similar in feel to the iPhone touch screen’s ‘Apps’ driven control screen.
It uses a processor from Imagination Technologies, a leader in multimedia chip technologies that supplies similar chips to Apple for phones and iPods. The Meta processor and Ensigma communications technologies, together with its internet radio portal platform, enable the “unprecedented capabilities of PURE’s new Sensia radio.”
The radio has a large 5.7 inch, 640 x 480, high resolution colour touch-screen which allows users access radio and internet content including: podcasts and listen again services; DAB+ and FM; a growing set of custom Pure ‘Apps’ such as weather, news, Picasa, Facebook or Twitter; and new broadcast material such as station slideshows that will be supported in both DAB+ Slideshow and IP (Radio VIS) slideshow formats.
The Sensia also streams media from shared wifi network devices, enabling users to listen to music stored on a home computer or network storage device.
Touch-screen features include scrolling and spinning program lists, touching to select, sliding controls and swiping to change views.
The radio will be available in stores during early November and will be priced at the top end of the digital radio product range, at $749.
It was launched in Sydney by Pure Australasia managing director Graeme Redman and Imagination Technologies’ CEO Hossein Yassaie. Redman told industry players at the launch:
“Pure made its name as the company behind the success of DAB. We’ve since added a market leading and multi award-winning, internet-connected product range with our Flow series. Sensia is the next major innovation from Pure… I’m confident this product will bring radio to a whole new ‘Facebook’ generation, whilst still inspiring our traditional customer base.”
The radio comes in 4 colours: bright red, vivid yellow, black and white. An adjustable base allows the user to angle the radio to an optimum viewing position and comes with a remote control that uses RF, not infrared, so that you do not have to directly point the control at the unit to make it work.
If wifi access is available the radio will connect to the company’s Pure Lounge portal (www.thelounge.com) to access internet audio content and save and organise favourites.
The radio has multiple alarm settings, 365 of them in fact, and can wake you with your own customized message or sounds. Sensia is equipped with Pure Clearsound technology for 30W RMS and also has an input for an iPod/MP3 player, countdown timer, sleep timer and a headphone socket. It works on mains or battery power.
