oslo

I don’t know if you would use the word delightful to describe a digital radio. But I’m going to. And it’s my review so it stands.

The Oslo by Blaupunkt surprised me a little. It’s a very simple and clean looking device. It doesn’t make a bold statement when you take it out of the box, in fact it doesn’t even do so when you look at it on the box. It leaves its statement for when you switch it on.
Setting up the Oslo is extremely simple. There’s a menu button which guides you through everything and most items actually set themselves up, literally. Difficult to explain, but you will know what I mean when you plug your Oslo in. Finding the right radio channel is a brease by using the scan button and you can save them as presets.

So what kinda of sound does the Oslo create? Well, it’s very good. Even great. If you go too loud it does vibrate a little, however when you listen to music at what should be considered a reasonable volume for the size and type of device it is then you might be surprised at the quality of sound the Oslo puts out. It feels like it has a huge bass speaker built right in to the middle of it. I was expecting a tinny sound. It’s anything but. I switched to MMM which is a rock radio station and it handled it just fine.

Blaupunkt have put some serious thought in to the buttons which run along the top of the Oslo. They’re simple but very clear and effective. Sometimes the most difficult thing is to make something simple when it’s easy to go down the path of complex. I see the Oslo as a unit which might sit in a kitchen or somewhere work is being done. It’s not the reason you are in a room, it’s just there to make things more enjoyable while you’re doing whatever you’re doing. For this alone, the buttons and simple layout and display of the unit are perfect.

I love that the clock is big. In fact, it’s huge and it’s clear. I can read the time and date from the other side of the room with no problems at all. I want the Oslo to tell me the time even when I’m not asking it. Think about that for a moment. I would hazard a guess that the team at Blaupunkt did think about it, and that’s why they’ve delivered such a fantastic product.

Finally, the external input. My first reaction to the Oslo was “why is there no iPhone input!?” I know there is on the bigger version of this product, however not the one I reviewed. After taking the time to think about it, I feel they’ve done the right thing by not including one. Instead they’ve included an audio input in the back of it. Using a standard 3.5m audio cable, like the one you use to connect your speakers to your PC, you can hook your iPhone 4, iPhone 5, Samsung, HTC or any device in to it. The iPhone was in a transitional phase from the old charge cable to the new one as well, and because of this they may have decided it best to allow consumers to plug anything in to it via an input cable instead of choosing a device and hoping it’s the one you’re using.

The Oslo by Blaupunkt delivers what it needs to. It won’t bring the neighbours over from next door for sound violations, but if you want a digital clock radio with an alarm that connects to whatever music player you have and can find any local digital station then this one is for you. It’s a simple and elegant solution to a problem you probably didn’t know you had. You could even say the Oslo is delightful.

I recommended the Oslo and give it an 8 out of 10 rating.

You can buy the Blaupunkt Oslo from Anyware Computers.

Reviewed by Andrew Cunningham.
http://zarfo.com/