I'm looking for a decent quality, very small radio, that I can listen to on headphones on the bus, for example. I'd favour size and durability over actual sound quality. One option is a radio on a phone - are these ok?
Any other suggestions?
Thanks
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 Hi Adam, Sony do a fairly comprehensive catalogue of portable radios, some of which are listed here. What kind of budget are you on? Have you thought about an mp3/radio player? They're pretty good value too... Al
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What would the main benefits of an MP3/radio player be?
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Lots of portable music manufacturers (such as Creative & iRiver) bundle in a radio along with their mp3 players, so that you have the choice of listening to a selection of your own music as well. They're pretty cheap too - here's an example. Many of them come with a voice recording facility as well! I dunno, this may not be something that interests you, but for £50 or so you can buy something that is extremely versatile. And at a guess I'd say a mobile with a radio tuner in-built, would probably cost more than that, but I maybe wrong. Anyone else got some ideas on this? Al
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My Nokia 6610 mobile cost me about 70 quid and has got a great little FM radio on it!
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Does using the radio have any noticeable effect on the battery life? I'm not actually familiar with the 6610: is it small (that's always the winner for me)?
Thanks for your thoughts, Al and Paul.
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 I've always found the headphones you are forced to use with mobile-phone radios to be thoroughly uncomfortable... Also if an incoming call arrives, then it interrupts your listening, regardless of your desire (or lack thereof) to answer!
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The battery life is excellent (as with most Nokia phones). I get about 3-6 days battery life out of it, depending on use. I was surprised as the radio doesn't seem to drain the batttery as much as I suspected. As for size, it's pretty compact, but if size is a real factor then I think Nokia do a smaller one...
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Mobile phone battery life has jumped forward in leaps and bounds in recent years hasn't it. Impressive when you think about it. Are you able to use your own headphones with that model, Paul? Or are you stuck with the 'hands-free kit'?
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It actually comes with headphones, which although aren't spectacular, they do the job fine. Are you after a phone Jules? I'm not sure Nokia make my one anymore, but I'm sure they do something similar.
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no - i've got one thats upgraded annually by my network as part of the contract. I'm probably going to buy an iRiver MP3 player - the latest one (i forget the model number, it's black) - which I think can do radio aswell.
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I quite like the look of Sony's new Flash players:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/08/sony_updates_flash_walkman/
One's got an FM tuner on it too - knowing Sony though, they probably aren't gonna be cheap...
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I had a Nokia 8110 for a couple of years. It's radio and battery were both great.
It's an old phone now - who knows may even be available as a free upgrade. The advantage for me was that you always had your phone with you. And the hands free kit was small and two earphone based.
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