Pure Sensia Digital Audio System with Wi-Fi and Colour Touchscreen – Black
Posted by Notcot on May 30, 2010 in Portable Sound & Vision |
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When I read about the Pure Sensia the timing couldn’t have been better as that week the power supply of my Pinnacle Soundbridge Radio gave up the ghost (a common occurrence) and although I thought the Sensia was overpriced, it made a perfect replacement. I decided on the white one and was delighted that it was available immediately on Amazon via KK Electronics and I duly ordered one.
It arrived a couple of days later and lived up to my visual expectations (the bag it came in was a nice touch). However the first few days were spent deciding whether it should go back as it certainly didn’t live up to my “ease of use” expectations. The touch-screen seemed to be difficult to master (I have an Apple itouch so the concept wasn’t foreign to me) and although slow, it wasn’t as bad as some of the other reviews on Amazon made out. However, I have a lot of music on my computer that I wanted to be able to stream to the Sensia and the scrolling screen just wasn’t able to cope – I just couldn’t find albums or artists as easily as I would have wanted. Also the internet radio search screen looked clunky and difficult to master. The on-line manual wasn’t any help at all and there were a number of on-screen symbols that I didn’t understand (nothing in the manual about them). And although the Apps weren’t the main reason for buying it, they seemed like fun and a good little extra. So imagine my disappointment when after downloading the latest software up-date, there was an on-screen message saying “App management and more coming soon..” So after a couple of days, I had to either persevere or send it back and I decided to spend some time seeing if it was worth keeping. I decided on the former and with some trial and error on my part and looking at the postings on the AV Forum: http://www.avforums.com/forums/dab-digital-radio-fm-radio/1083559-pure-sensia.html and the reviews on Amazon, I started to unravel some of the Sensia’s mysteries! I realised that the best way to sort out streaming my music from my computer to the Sensia was to move the albums I thought I would want to play into a separate folder and this would make it easier to manage – not perfect but a good work around. I also spent some time in The Lounge and worked out how to set-up folders for different genres of internet radio station and realised that this is one of the best reasons for getting the Sensia – this works superbly and you can event set-up custom stations for those not found via The Lounge. I even found the two Apps – Twitter and the weather – although I don’t tweet!
However, there are still some major bugs that need sorting out – especially the showing of cover art when streaming music from your computer. It’s explained on the Pure web-site how to do this but having followed the instructions to the letter, it’s incredibly inconsistent and illogical – I can’t see the cover art on some albums when I follow the instructions and I can see it when I don’t! I contacted Customer Support and contrary to other comments, they came back to me in 24 hours and although they didn’t address all the issues (especially the cover art conundrum), at least I have established a dialogue with them.
I’m hoping that some of the problems will be addressed by software up-dates. Customer support in their emailed response said “Software updates are coming thick and fast and a new release should be soon. No list of additions though”.
So to sum up:
Pros:
The design is superb and it looks amazing
Sound is very good although lacks a little bass and the ability to change any sound settings – a small graphic equaliser would be nice
Cover art (if I can get it to work properly!)
Folder organisation of internet radio stations via The Lounge
The ability to stream photos from your computer as a slide show
The facility to access “Listen Again” from the BBC although an iplayer interface would make it so much easier to find specific programmes
Headphone socket
Aux input for ipod etc.
Ease of wi-fi set-up
Cons:
A very poor manual for something that’s technologically advanced and expensive (sorry to go on about the price!).
No real apps although it’s marketed as a radio for “the Facebook generation”
Scrolling of the touch screen can be a little difficult and slow. It is also a little cramped e.g. for “Listen Again” etc. and it needs to be seen full screen rather than in the small window as it is at the moment.
Strange remote that doesn’t do much apart from making it easier to turn the unit on and off. It also has two rocker buttons for volume – one for louder (+) and one for softer (-) which is very confusing as the louder button makes it louder whichever end of the rocker you push – unlike any remote I’ve ever seen and not very intuitive at all.
Rating: 3 / 5
I had seen all the reviews and online demo of this product before its launch and could not wait for its release.
I love gadgets and could not wait for its release. On wednesday 11th November I purchased the white sensia in John Lewis. (I would have ordered it on Amazon but I could not wait for delivery)
The radio looks terrific. That was the good point………………
I was at first, very unhappy with it, as it kept switching off and resetting itself. At first I thought it was probably updating itself but It kept happening so on Saturday 14th November I took it back for a replacement. I could not believe my luck when this one turned out to be faulty as well. It would not hold its settings such as my WIFI password and radio favourites. By now I was very disheartened but ever the optimist I took it back on Monday 16th and got another replacement, this time a black sensia. I could have got a refund but as I like the look of it so much, I decided to stick at it.
Now nearly a week a later I’m so glad I did………
The look is stunning and the screens in my opinion are good once you get used to them. You may feel the search and touch screens are unresponsive at first but once you get a feel for the sensia you get used to them. I will admit it can be annoying that when you want to search the Listen Again programmes, as it only displays part of the title.
The DAB radio works very well and I guess that because of its solid telescopic ariel, it has no trouble in finding stations. It seems to pick up a lot more than my old Pure DAB Radio.
The Lounge WIFI internet radio works well and it was very easy picking up stations by genre and country. For example I like country music so I went into the search function and picked Country in the genre tab and USA in the country tab and hey presto I was listening to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. You can easily store all you favourites by clicking on the heart icon which is displayed by the name of the radio station (this function is the same for DAB and FM radio as well). You then just scroll thru your favourites rather than having to go back and use the search screen for over 1200 stations. In order to create folders for your favourite stations and add stations that you can’t find, you need to register the radio with the lounge website and create an account which is directly linked to your radio only. Once this is done you can then view all your stations in different folders and delete favourite stations that you no longer like on your radio itself.
The APPS Icon at the bottom of the screen does not work and keeps on saying that the APPS function is coming soon. That said you can now view APPS for twitter and the weather by scrolling the top right hand screen left to right (or vice versa). Once you see the twitter screen you can scroll up and down to change to the weather app. You will need to change the location to your town by clicking on the bottom of the left hand corner of the screen. A setting icon will appear and then bring up a screen with Kings Langley typed in it as a default. If you press the backspace button and overtype this with your own town, MAKE SURE you PRESS the GREEN TICK ICON before pressing enter. This way it will search for your town. if you DO NOT press the green tick icon before pressing enter – it will search but come back with Kings Langley displayed again.
There is nothing to help you with the alarm function but again by playing around you begin to work it out, although I still can’t work out how to wake up to a different WIFI station other than the last one listened to the night before. When setting the radio its asks you to pick the station you would like to wake up to, now if your listening to a different WIFI station when its turned off then that same station is what will wake you up and not what you had selected. For example I was listening to a thunder storm in the Pure Sounds WIFI menu. I wanted to wake up to a WIFI country music station but got the thunderstorm instead even though the alarm menu clearly states the station I had picked. I have not tried this with DAB or FM so do not know if this happens with them. I emailed PURE to find out what I’m doing wrong but as yet a week later still no response. Any answers would be greatly appreciated.
The external input is good and plays my IPOD.
I have not used the internet streaming function for music and photo’s.
The sensia sound great for its size.
Also being right next to my bed, its good to be able to turn the clock off when in standby so it does not light up the room whilst you are sleeping. If you wake up in your dark room and need to know the time then just touch the screen and the clock appears for about 5 seconds.
Im not sure why theres a remote as most of the buttons don’t seem to have any functions except for volume, toggling between DAB/WIFI/FM etc and standby.
The quick starter guide that comes with the Sensia is not a lot of cop, Your are supposed to download the full manual online but it has not been finished!!!! When you try to use it and click on certain pages/icons it just says coming soon – which is not a lot of cop when you are trying to use your sensia to its full potential. Most of the above I have worked out by playing around with it. You would think that for £250 it would come with decent manual. I guess they have tried to rush this out for the Christmas period.
A week ago I would have said do not buy this radio for at least a month or two but now I have got used to it – its great!!!!!
I think that with further updates this radio will be amazing and performance will match is great looks.
Rating: 4 / 5
When I saw the announcement of the Sensia I was thrilled. As a radio loving tech fan this is what I’d been waiting for for years – a product that integrated a touch screen to allow me to choose freely from Listen Again content. My previous wifi radio only allowed navigation via a two line LCD which wasn’t simple to work with.
This touch screen at last understood how technology could be applied to on demand radio.
The radio is expensive but I justified it to myself and ordered.
The radio arrived a couple of days ago. I am so disappointed with it I felt I should warn other people off.
Firstly the radio doesn’t allow ‘live pausing’. This is an astonishing omission – which even the radio on my iPod nano can do. Why this is the case I don’t know – there’s even a pause button on the remote. So strange.
Secondly the linux system has been built badly and is very slow to respond. Choosing stations and programmes doesn’t intuitively use the full screen – and often only the first 10-15 characters of programme names are visible. (‘Afternoon play -…’ doesn’t really tell me much). Searching for programmes basically doesn’t work – my attempt to refine my search to BBC Radio programmes never returns results.
Also the interface between DAB and internet rather than being seamless is very clunky. DAB programmes cut off when you opt to choose to listen to web stations (often leaving a minute of useless silence when I would have liked to carry on listening). I’d ideally like a clever system that allows me to choose BBC Five Live – and then receive the offer to ‘listen live’ or to an archive programme.
Now as this is a linux system all of these things should be very simple – creating bookmarks on the desk top could have been one simple way to store favourites. Instead the process requires you logging onto a website and building a folder of favourite programmes. Want to listen to something factual from the last week? Then searching on the Sensia is pretty much useless – so you need to log on to a PC select the programme, then go back to the Sensia where the programme will be sitting in a folder of bookmarks. Its not the breezy browsing I’d imagined.
Oh dear – who built this? There are two brilliant real world starting places for building a system like this – the iPlayer and Sky+. Instead this looks like it was built by a very poorly qualified software engineer on a wet weekend.
The trumpeted applications don’t yet work and my attempt to turn the screen off in standby meant that the unit signalled its ongoing electricity consumption with a distressing (but very quiet) whine.
Flicking through programmes is anything but iPod like – the demo video shows a finger casually dragging the list of programmes up the page. In fact they don’t respond half the time or accidentally choose one of the programmes and you end up listening to something beginning with A (because that’s all you ever get to see on the cramped programme list box).
Hey… on the plus side I have now listened to ‘Annie Mac’, ‘1Xtra drive show’ and ‘Any Questions’. It’d be nice to get past A soon.
Strangely when you’re choosing from this cramped list of stations half of the screen is filled with a logo for ‘The Lounge’.
Ever the optimist I am hoping that the firmware will be updated soon – and that in the meantime a team of high quality engineers are working on it.
I hope they are. Otherwise I will regret the strong urge that I am supressing to return this overpriced, underspecced waste of money.
My advice – hangback till Christmas at the very least. I would recommend a netbook over this. And it makes me very very sad to say so.
(addendum: Two days in I sent it back. It just got too much. I’m now contemplating the Logitech Squeezebox – which has much better reviews)
Rating: 2 / 5
We have been looking for some time for something which would ‘empower’ us to play all our music and get more from web radio.
Well the Sensia is certainly bringing us closer to that reality.
I have read many reviews and both sides of the coin are given.
This is what I enjoy most about it:
1- Portable (especially with its battery mode) , small , compact but packed with featues. Sits conveniently on our breakfast table, it’s a new member to our family
2- Good sound with 15W RMS per channel
3- RF remote control. Yes many commented on the lack of facility to control the many features of the Sensia but I enjoy its simplicity and the fact it’s RF so you don’t have to be pointing to the unit!
4- Audio Streaming (AAC/… compatible)
5- Choice of full screen to present the applications (weather/twitter/…)
6- Easy to configure. It’s true that there are a few oddities in getting things configured, but pretty much everything was up and going in a couple of hours. (admittedly probably takes a gadget-minded person to get through some of its settings)
Some of the ++ that weren’t initially sought out but now we are very fond of:
1- Photo streaming. Easily configured their XP FlowServer which had no problem scanning the directories for all our photos despite their note about ‘applies only to PURE products with photo viewer support’ which didn’t seem to be an issue.
2- Egg timer as part of the alarm functions. Convenient for us because we are using the unit in the kitchen.
3- Weather application giving my local area weather report with up to 4 day forcast.
4- Date/time display in standby which is large and clear.
They are few things to improve:
* How lists are presented. Why isn’t there a full screen mode to display the info.
* User interface for searching is slow. A bit of patience and getting used to is required here.
* Easier text entry input would be a big plus. Why isn’t it using the whole screen for entering the text? (couldn’t find anywhere on their Pure/thelounge to feedback comments!)
* Many small oddities (e.g. windows not refreshing some dialogs, search entry dialog looks disabled!) which I am hoping to see fixed/enhanced in future updates
No lock ups so far (Only has been 2days!).
But hell what a joy to carry this rugby ball shaped unit around the house with no wires attached!
Rating: 4 / 5
I was very excited about the release of this product as on paper (and appearance) at least it seems like the perfect combination of good looks, usability and innovation. However the reality is very different indeed – the touch screen is one of the worst I have ever used with a huge delay sometimes between pressing a “button” and the unit responding, the menu system is not intuitive at all, and currently there are no online extras (such as Facebook or Twitter integration) as advertised. They’re apparently coming soon and you do get the idea that if they’d held back and released this 3 months later, once they’ve got the software sorted, it’d be a much more impressive product. As it stands, it’s hard to recommend an item which clearly isn’t ready for market.
Rating: 2 / 5