Sony XDR-S20 review

Manufacturers like Roberts have made a business out of slipping modern DAB electronics into the husks of 50s radios, but Sony is not well known for its traditionalism. The XDR-S20 is about as retro as Sony gets. There's a hint of Bakelite about the plastic chassis, but apart from that, there's little mistaking this for a vintage model.

The S20 best suits the kitchen. Its single-speaker design means it's a radio destined for casual use. There is the option to plug in headphones, but if you're going to be listening this way, you'd be better off opting for a much more compact unit without a built-in speaker. Compared to offerings from PURE and Roberts, the S20 seems ambitiously priced at around £90, but those looking for a basic home radio may find this suits them.

Our overriding concern about the S20 is its tuning control system. Though it works adequately, it's a giant step backwards for radio design, and dismisses several decades of thinking about radio user interfaces. The tuning dial on the S20 is a fruitless effort to reinvent the wheel -- the radio signal may be digital now, but this is no reason to abandon the familiar, and effective, traditional tuning dial.

Design
Sony has opted for a fairly clean design with the XDR-S20. By Sony's standards this is a very utilitarian-looking device. There are no flourishes to the chassis, and there's a distinct absence of the glassy black plastic that has become the mainstay of the VAIO and PSP. The S20 is available in black as well as white, however: our review model was the white unit. It could have easily been mistaken for a piece of medical equipment -- its design is extremely functional.

Unfortunately, appearances are deceptive, and the S20's design over-complicates the natural simplicity of a kitchen radio. Small things, like the power button being labelled 'operate' instead of 'ON', or, as on a traditional radio, being integrated with the volume dial, make the radio less friendly than it should be. Minor points perhaps, but given that the user interfaces on radios are so well established it seems extremely disorientating to suddenly redefine the control system on a whim.

The most glaring design flaw on the S20 is the tuning dial. Rather than use a rotating control, the tuning dial toggles a few millimetres in either direction. This is not a completely illogical way of scanning through stations, but the traditional method was much quicker and more effective. Given how well Roberts and PURE have implemented rotary tuners on their digital radios, it's a shame that the S20 ignores this method of tuning.

Controls along the top of the radio perform obvious functions including switching from DAB to FM, Auto Tune, Display and Favourites. There are also controls for clock, the brightness of the LCD display and contrast. The LCD screen on the S20 is bright and clear -- you won't have any trouble reading this through bleary morning eyes. A headphone socket on the left-hand side allows a more personal listening experience. There's a power-cable socket in the back that accepts a standard figure-of-eight power lead, and a battery compartment which takes six C-cell batteries -- adding significant weight to the unit.

Setup
If you've used a DAB before, you'll be familiar with the tuning process on the XDR-S20. It's an automated tuning system that activates itself when the radio is first switched on. The radio will automatically seek out all available DAB broadcasts and list them on the LCD in a scrollable list.

Compared to the other DABs we've tested, the S20's tuning speed was snappy. First-time users will have little problem getting the radio to a stage where it can play.