Home > Consumer Reviews > Roberts SOLARDAB-W SolarDAB Solar Powered DAB Radio wth Rechargeable Battery Pack - White

Great little DAB radio - works great on our kitchen window sill - picks up all the DAB stations, but we are in a v. good DAB reception area. Charges up when off during the day from the sunlight through the window - haven't had to plug it in to charge up yet (except initial charge), and it gets a couple of hours use a night.
Only slight downside is the extendible aerial is a bit unsightly, but it works very well in our house with it fully retracted.
Overall, very pleased with it.

I bought this because I wanted a radio which I could use outdoors, but I didn't want to have to keep buying batteries for it, especially as DAB is so power-hungry. The radio charges up well even when it is switched off. My only concern was that white plastic might go yellow in the sun over a number of years, but I wasn't keen on any of the other colours, so I went for the white one anyway, and I'll just have to see what happens. The sound quality is excellent - Roberts really do put money into a good speaker, and I'd recommend this radio on that alone. All in all - a good buy - I'm really pleased with my purchase.

I have mine sitting on a not-very-sunny windowsill in a bathroom, behind frosted glass. Apart from the first charge by the mains, I've never had to resort to that again. I use it maybe 15 minutes a day. I can confirm - both from the helpdesk prior to sale and personal experience after - that it does re-charge itself even when not turned on. So, in that department, it's completely satisfactory in that department.
Looks-wise, I don't think it's great. Ergonomics too are not perfect. Why is the on-off button, which one wants to use every day, the same size as the info button that one uses once (and then just to see what it does)?
Also I don't find the preset that great: you have to press the preset button, then twiddle the second knob, then press in the second knob. Hardly the work of a moment. I admit you see the channels as you move between the available presets but I'd far prefer 10 distinct buttons labelled 1-10 on which I could put radio 4 at number 4 etc - making changing channel a single click. Also tuning between presets isn't that fast - but maybe that's a characteristic of DAB.
Incidentally, for mine the line-in didn't work when powered off a small mp3 player. I think the output of the player wasn't enough. (It worked off other devices OK.)

Still, in spite of the above, highly recommended for avoiding the irritation of having to mess around with batteries.

It's frustrating to see how happy most people are with this radio. It has several fine features but I've had to return two of these SolarDabs before giving up on it because the reception has been so poor. I found the signal was frequently dropping out so that there were short silent spaces in the programmes I was listening to. This was particularly annoying when listening to someone speaking on BBC Radio 4 and I would often lose the end of a sentence.

I followed all the advice given to me by Roberts' technical support line but nothing helped. I'm in a good area for DAB and I have other DAB radios that work fine (including another Roberts), but these SolarDabs gave very poor quality reception. It's puzzling but that's the way it was.

This marvellous little radio solves the problem of receiving power-hungry DAB broadcasts in rooms where there is no power point. DAB radios are notoriously heavy on batteries but the Solardab solves this problem neatly.

I have had one on my bathroom windowsill for a couple of months now and the battery gauge has barely gone down more than one bar. The sound is excellent and you get all the advantages of a great range of stations. The radio will charge itself whether it is on or off but it does need natural sunlight - a south-facing window is ideal.

I have no hesitation in recommending it.