Digital radio in Australia is a slow burner. While many people are investing in digital set-top boxes and digital displays for the purpose of watching digital TV, not too many people are jumping on the digital radio bandwagon. There are good reasons though - digital radio in Australia is in its infancy, and as such there are only engineering test signals being currently broadcast in Sydney at the moment, and soon beginning in Melbourne. You can still pick up quite a few stations though, with 2DAY, NOVA, 2SM, 2KY, 2WS, 2CH, 2GB, 2UE and ABC and SBS all participating in the trials. This means that if you get a digital radio, you can get these station in better than CD quality.

Which is where the half-serious, half-novelty radio from Pure Digital called the BUG comes into the picture. Looking somewhat like Number 5's head from Short Circuit grafted onto the bonnet of a Porsche, the BUG is an odd amalgam of high-end audio, low-end crafting and mid-range gadgetry.

Firstly, the good stuff. The BUG has some decent speakers with mid-range fidelity built in, but you can bypass these with headphones, or even plug the BUG into a stereo via the unit's SPDIF optical output.

The BUG is also the first radio to feature a PVR-like 'timeshift' and pause function called ReVu. Around fifteen minutes of audio is cached on the BUG, allowing you to rewind the radio to a missed song, news bulletin or whatever catches your fancy. The back of the unit also features an SD slot, allowing you to record radio too and with USb you can send these files to your PC or upload to an MP3 player. The BUG can access these recordings for future playback too.

The BUG's 'face' also features scrolling text (when information broadcast is trialled), and plenty of station and radio information. Swapping stations is as simple as scrolling through names - no need to retune and play with dials - it's all laid out in a menu.

In the end, the BUG is a weird product. It's a fantastic radio with a novelty finish, but at $595 it's priced well within the high-end of the spectrum and we can't really come at it at this price.