Emma Bridgewater DAB Radio Review

(I was gifted this radio by VQ, all views are my own.)

Hello everyone, I hope you had a wonderful weekend!

Something about me that you may not know, is that I’m a complete music addict.  I am a massive music geek, and I cannot go anywhere without a melody playing in my ears, a habit that started when I was about 13 (the Smiths, The Stone Roses, various indie and heavy metal bands on my Walkman, ahh happy days…).  The obsession took a bit of a nose dive whilst I was bringing up young children, but came back with an absolute passion in the last eight years or so.  My tastes are very broad and eclectic, ranging from jazz, alternative, motown, 80’s, 90’s to hip hop with a whole much of stuff in between, but my go to genre has always been a bit of heavy rock/heavy metal.  It makes me very happy when I’m stood in my pastel kitchen with my pretty crockery, cup of tea and flowers in a vase with a bit of Metallica/Royal Blood/Nirvana raging in the background.

I already have one bluetooth speaker which I use all day and everyday, plus a radio in my kitchen that I listen to as part of my morning ritual, but I have thought for a while that it would be really lovely to have a second speaker to use upstairs, to save me carrying the other one around the house with me.  Obviously I would never agree to do a product review of something that I didn’t need or want, because what would be the point in that?  So needless to say I was absolutely delighted when the folks at VQ asked if I would do a product review of one of their Emma Bridgewater Digital Radios, which also doubles as a bluetooth speaker.  I even did a little ‘happy dance’.

As a Mother’s Day promotion VQ are running a fab offer for UK customers, where if you purchase one of their gorgeous Emma Bridgewater radios in the print of your choice (the Retro Mini, Hepburn Mk II, or the Retro Mk II ) between 13th and 26th March, you also get a free £20 Bloom & Wild gift voucher.  Bloom & Wild do the most beautiful flowers by post (I had some peonies from them a couple of years ago), and obviously it’s perfect timing for treating my mum to a beautiful bunch of blooms.

It was a toss up between the very cute Retro Mini and the Hepburn Mk II, but in the end I chose the Hepburn Mk II, and I went for the Rosebee print, a sweet rose sprig design.  The first thing about this radio is that it’s super easy to set up, and mine had Radio One blaring out within five minutes of opening the box.  You can use for digital or analogue radio broadcast, and you can add your favourite stations with up to ten presets.  Plus I love that it’s both a radio and a bluetooth speaker.  However the feature that sealed the deal for me, is the wide speaker at the front (for the techno heads out there – they are enhanced with Digital Sound Processing technology!).

I’m not going to beat around the bush here – I LOVE this radio.  Not only does it look beautiful, but the sound from that speaker is absolutely incredible.  I love that I can switch in between radio and bluetooth speaker at the touch of a button, and thanks to VQ for sending me the battery pack, because now I can take it for from to room with me, which is just brilliant.  A small detail that also makes me very happy, is that my iPod connects within a few seconds, something that never happens with my other bluetooth speaker (despite the fact that I use it every day, it seems to disconnect in between uses).  I’m so happy with it that I am pondering over the idea of getting the Retro Mini for my daughter for her birthday, because it would look so cute in her room (and it would stop her pinching this one!).

Thank you so much to VQ for sending me this radio – all views are of course my own!

Tamsyn x