The solarDAB is what I would call retro-ugly. Meaning that it reminds me of some of the uglier aspects of yesterday’s gadgets…today. Ugly it may be, but it is the world’s first solar-powered DAB radio, from Roberts. It sports a top-mounted solar panel along with an indicator on the display that shows you the strength of the solar level being absorbed.

With the rechargeable batteries fully sun kissed, you’ll have tunes for an amazing 27 hours. Looks like they have a variety of colors to choose from for $158. Ugly, yes. But 27 hours of music is pretty awesome.

Pure has now released their Pure One Mini, a portable radio measuring just 130 x 135 x 60mm. It will give you 20 hours of portable listening when fitted with the optional rechargeable ChargePAK.

The One Mini will also give you FM reception, an input for your iPod so you can use ONE Mini as a portable speaker, up to 16 presets, a headphone socket and a USB socket for future upgrades. It’s available now in the UK for £40 or $79 USD in three colors to choose from: black, white or pink.

Here’s a lawsuit waiting to happen. This device lives up to it’s name by recording all of your favorite songs directly from FM radio. It’s like they just flipped off the RIAA, or else they were not bright enough to realize that this would draw their attention. It will save your tracks as MP3 files onto an SD card, without the annoying advertisements and DJ talk. Isn’t that what you’ve been waiting for? It also has a USB port, line-in jack, and headphone plug. I would say grab one fast, as this is too good to be true and too up in the RIAA’s bidness. It will cost you £69.99.

The problem with the Radio City Valve Radio, aside from the fact that it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, is that they just kinda slapped a bunch of stuff together and then went so far as to have a plaque on the front that says “Radio City”. Yeah, we’re going to Radio city. Not.

I’m pretty sure the glass or plastic tubes do nothing except emit that faint light you see. And am I seeing this right? It looks like they just went crazy and threw a heatsink behind them for pure kicks. Only our friends in China could show such a lack of style. I mean, the whole deal just looks unfinished and very toy-like.

Who says there are no new ideas? The BBC are certainly not lacking in imagination. They commissioned this neat idea that combines social networking with a digital radio, and the end result is Olinda. On one hand, it’s a normal digital radio, but when you remove the clear orange cap, a plug-in interface is exposed.

You can add modules onto the end of it, like building with Legos. This one has small buttons that each correspond to one of your friends. A button lights up when one of your friends is listening to the radio, so if you push that button, you’ll hear the same radio station that your friend is listening to. The creators hope to develop more modules, thereby expanding the uses of the device.

Here’s an useful gadget. It’s a radio with a removable MP3 player. With this device you can record content from the radio so you can listen to it from wherever and whenever you want. This should come in handy for fans of talk and AM radio.

Of course, similar devices for satellite radio already exist, and it does seem a bit odd that the MP3 player doesn’t include an FM tuner of its own, but it is what it is. An MP3 player docking in a radio mothership.

It’s not quite summer yet, but if you have your pool ready to go, this floating Homer Simpson radio will let you listen to your favorite AM or FM radio station while you take it easy. Like you, Homer floats on his back with a can of Duff parked on his gut and not a care in the cartoon world.

The Duff can is used to tune the radio and adjust the volume. Apparently, he’s waterproof and requires a set of AAA batteries to run. He will cost you $40.

Sagem is probably better known for their budget cell phones, but now they’re releasing the mydu@l radio700 WiFi Internet radio clock. It’s perhaps not the sexiest radio, but you won’t need any computer to use it, and it will be able to get up to 7,000 Internet radio stations as long as it’s within a WiFi zone.

It does terrestrial radio too, with an integrated FM tuner, and you can also hook up USB devices and playback MP3, WMA and WAV files from it. To top it all off, it has an alarm clock function with a snooze button. You can get the Sagem mydu@l radio 700 at the special introductory price of £79.99.

CBS announced on Wednesday that its Last.fm internet radio service will be adding a new feature that will allow users to listen to any song they would like, whenever they would like for free, up to three times per song.

Up until now Last.fm’s model has been similar to many other internet radio services. The 20 million currently active users can select a genre “station” to listen to and hear the music in the order that the service streamed it out, along with advertising in between. CBS and Last.fm is building on this model since the service is free to users and paid for by the advertising, much like tradition radio. This new option gives users the change to select a particular song and listen to it as many as three times, on-demand.

Robert Radio announced the MP-Sound 41, a slick looking silver colored and compact portable digital radio with Electronic Programming Guide (EPG) technology. The Electronic Programming Guide lets you program the radio to record up to 12 of your favorite shows for up to a week in advance, so you won’t have to miss anything again. You can also use the EPG to store up to eight hours of recordings directly onto a SD memory card.

Some other features include a full screen display, easy “cassette key-style” navigation, which will give you pause, rewind, fast-forward, record and playback. You also get PausePlus, a clock function with up to 12 different alarms and a headphone jack.

Intempo has a new radio out that it claims to be the world’s first low-power internet and FM radio on the market. The Daisy radio features the ability to pick up as many as 6,000 different radio stations wirelessly through a Wi-Fi connection, provided you’re in range of one. If you’re not, the little radio can also pick up regular FM signals.

We haven’t seen a lot from Intempo lately but they kicked this device off at last weeks CES conference to start out their 2008 with a new product on the market. The radio features a somewhat unique design with an offset rectangle separating the speaker from the display. It has touch-sensitive controls on the right for navigating stations and volume and also features a clock and alarm. Internal batteries keep the device portable and give it up to 20 hours of playback.

Eton has launched a new hand-crank powered survival radio, the FR1000 at CES 2008. Obviously for survivalists scared about global warming and the rising cost of Hannah Montana tickets. It doesn’t help that the UFO’s will attack when no one is looking.

The new radio sports AM/FM/2-Way GMRS radio capabilities, complete with torch, emergency siren and mobile phone charger so you can still recharge your battery if Gremlins shut off the power.

I bring you more CES 2008 goodness. The On Time 200ID lets you wake up to your iPod, iPhone, radio, or a simple buzzer. If you want to connect other devices, it also has a 1/8th-inch line input. The one-piece speaker has a backlit LCD as well as touch-sensitive controls, and a backup battery to preserve your settings if power is interrupted.

The On Time 400IHD is pretty similar, but adds dual alarms and an HD Radio receiver for picking up HD stations. It also supports iTunes tagging; just press a button when you hear something you like, and when you sync your iPod in iTunes, it will let you find and buy it quickly.

If you are looking for a stylish CD/MP3 clock radio that has quality German design, Sonoro Audio has three new cubos that are launching during CES 2008. These retro looking units are an all-in-one clock that contains a slot-in CD/MP3 player as well as an internal iPod docking station with remote control compatibility and recharge function. It also has that old archaic thing known as AM/FM radio reception.

If you happen to be a fan of radio, they will also be offering a internet/FM radio cubo. It certainly combines form with functionality and they paid attention to design detail. Each of the three cubos are encased in wood in order to provide high quality acoustics. The metal grill located on the top of the product enables upward resonance from its powerful full range speaker.

This retro looking radio has a very simple design marrying the old with the new. It’s powered via the USB port on your computer and will give you the current time and weather conditions. It features two round portal like displays on the front. One display shows you the current week on the top, the hour and minute, and the bottom part displays the year, month and date. The other display gives you information about humidity and temperature.

It’s also available in a smaller version with a few features missing. Instead it has a count down function and a birthday reminder. I just like the fact that these remind me of my grandfather’s electronics. They are basic with no bells and whistles. Sometimes it’s nice to have something low-key.