I received my 2nd TEF radio yesterday, a red Deepelec DP-666 (pic below)… $125 including delivery from Ali Express vendor ‘Deepelec Store’. I had a play around with it last night.
Pros
- Nice and light, back of the case feels easy to grip.
- Has a dedicated power and main off switch, allowing you to turn the volume down without accidentally shutting the radio off. And so can’t be easily turned back on accidentally.
- The big advantage / attraction is the numeric keypad and one of the main reasons why I bought it.
- Is touch screen capable with a firmware upgrade, but I don’t think it needs it, screen would smudge with fingerprints easily.
- Included carry case is very handy
- Looks great in red!
Cons
- Whilst easy to grip, edges and corners of the radio feel a bit sharper than they should.
- Sound quality probably not as good as my previous TEF, but still OK (I use headphones).
- Signal meter rises/falls more slowly than the old unit, not ideal.
- Numeric keypad isn’t backlit (that I can see), whilst it would be handy for nighttime outdoor DXing (which I mostly do), it would probably shorten battery life. But you can generally feel/see just enough to workout which buttons to press to get the desired frequency.
- No connector is included to be able to use a different antenna (but the one from my other TEF works with it).
- Can’t find a way yet to get ‘Extended RDS’ info to appear, long pressing any of the BW, MODE, BAND buttons won’t bring it up.
- RDS doesn’t display date, only time, might be firmware upgradable to get that.
My only other comments are that FM performance seems to be similar to my other TEF, no either a pro or con. And it’s very handy to have a 2nd unit “just in case”. This unit will get a lot of use, will probably still use my other TEF too.