At first I would like to thank Pure for offering me a sample of their Contour 200i Air Music Streaming System for testing and reviewing.

 

About Pure:

"Pure is the world's leading manufacturer of wireless music and internet radio systems, the number one supplier of digital radios in Europe and Australia, and the creator of the Evoke-1S, the world's most popular and iconic digital radio. Pure leads the way in wireless music systems and cloud services with the Pure Connect portal.

Pure radios support all the broadcast standards in the DAB family used across all key markets in Europe and beyond. Designed and engineered in the UK, all of Pure's products are manufactured with the environment in mind and at ethically audited facilities. Pure is a division of Imagination Technologies Group plc."

Product Overview:

Contour 200i Air is a compact but powerful digital music system featuring Apple’s wireless streaming technology, AirPlay, Pure Stream* for wireless streaming of radio and music via the Pure Connect app on Android or iOS devices, and a dock for your iPod, iPhone or iPad.

AirPlay lets you stream music wirelessly to Contour 200i Air from a compatible iPod, iPhone or iPad or from iTunes on your computer using a Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection. AirPlay enables both the streaming of high quality audio plus two-way synchronisation – change volume on one device and the level is mirrored on the other.

And if you want to set up a multiroom wireless speaker system, simply put a Contour 200i Air in any room and you can send audio to them all simultaneously from iTunes.

The Pure Connect app brings millions of tracks, thousands of radio stations, and more to your Contour 200i Air, wirelessly using Pure Stream, or by docking your Apple device. Available free of charge and with versions suitable for both iOS and Android devices, the Pure Connect app gives you free access to thousands of internet radio stations, on demand programmes, podcasts, audioboos and more, tracks stored locally on your device, as well as a huge catalogue of tracks via the Pure Music† subscription service.

To make sure you get the most from your music Contour 200i Air has been engineered to deliver 36W RMS of highly detailed audio with twin bass ports helping to provide a rich rounded sound. The built-in dock supports most iPod, iPhone and iPad models and enables you to charge your device and control playback using the supplied remote control.

Other features include easy network connection setup, an input for connecting other audio devices, and a digital output for connecting to an external amplifier or hi-fi system.

 

Apple AirPlay for wireless music streaming from iPod touch, iPhone, iPad or iTunes on PC/Mac

Listen to music and radio streamed wirelessly from your Apple or Android device with Pure Stream*

Dock for iPod, iPhone and iPad

36W RMS of digital quality sound

Free iOS or Android Pure Connect app for internet radio, on-demand content and tracks via our Pure Music† subscription service

Multiroom audio solution via iTunes

Digital audio output

Easy Ethernet or Wi-Fi network setup

Input for other audio devices

Multi-coloured LED status indicator

Remote control

 

*Suitable for iPhone, iPod touch, iPad running iOS 5 and devices running Android v 2.2. Free Pure Connect app required.

 

†Currently available in the UK. See www.pure.com/availability for services in other regions.

 

Product Specifications:

Apple compatibility: Dock supports most iPod, iPhone and iPad models. For the latest information, check the compatibility table

Speakers: 2 full-range 3.5” drive units with twin downward firing bass ports.

Audio output: 2 x 18W RMS.

Input connectors: 12V DC power adapter socket. iPod/iPhone/iPad connector. 3.5mm Aux-in for auxiliary devices. Ethernet socket.

Output connectors: Digital coaxial socket for digital audio.

Remote control: Infrared remote control. CR2025 button cell battery included.

Mains power supply: 100-240V, 50/60Hz 12V DC 2.0A external power adapter.

Dimensions (mm): 371 wide x 229 high x 190 deep.

Approvals: CE marked. Compliant with the EMC and Low Voltage Directives (2004/108/EC and 2006/95/EC). ETSI EN 300 401 compliant.

Warranty: Comprehensive two year warranty.

 

The latest Contour 200i Air dock from Pure comes shipped in a medium-sized box, with a black theme and the photo of the main product is featured on the frontal side:

 

 

 

Also here we will be informed of the free Pure Lounge app, which will transform the dock into an Internet radio device (if we have an iPod Touch or iPhone handy):

 

 

 

More in-depth information about the Pure Lounge app is offered when opening up the box; a QR code is also offered, that we can scan and we’ll be redirected to the App Store to download the respective application:

 

 

 

Inside we’ll find documentation wrapped inside a re-sealable transparent plastic bag:

 

 

 

Taking off the first layer of protection, we’ll discover the dock, along with the rest of the bundle:

 

 

 

Besides the power brick, we will find leads for UK and rest of Europe, and a small remote:

 

 

 

The PSU is rated on the output 18V, 3.61A with the V efficiency level:

 

 

 

On the front it comes with an activity LED which stays on when power flows through:

 

 

 

On one end, the power adapter wire ends up with a jack plug:

 

 

 

Let’s take a look a little at the included small remote; the button functions are mostly for controlling the music app from the iPod Touch/iPhone, but from it we can also turn on/off the dock, adjust the volume levels or select the input source:

 

 

 

The remote is powered by a well known CR2025 3V Lithium Cell battery, easy to find at stores:

 

 

 

The Contour 200i Air dock has an interesting half-dome shape and does not occupy a lot of space on the table; the device drops the digital radio features completely but features the more interesting AirPlay streaming technology. In the front we also have the dual speaker drive units (2x18W RMS, 9cm drive units) and the connector behind the Pure logo:

 

 

 

The Contour 200i Air can also accommodate without any issues the iPad and does not need any inserts (as we have seen on some iHome units) to fit:

 

 

 

When looking on the top area, we will find a small removable sticker with an additional QR code, letting us know that the product features Apple AirPlay technology:

 

 

 

The front and the back side of the product are split by a top silver plastic gutter, which features the On/Off button, Mute, Vol -/+:

 

 

 

 

The back side of the Contour 200i Air comes with a rubberized finish, pleasant to the touch:

 

 

 

Also here we will find the connectivity options (from right to left): an Ethernet port, one Line-in jack, a Wi-Fi Setup button, one Digital Coaxial connector, DC-IN and a small firmware upgrade status LED:

 

 

 

On the bottom, we will find an oval shaped rubber material that helps the Contour not to slide on the surface we’ll put it on, along with multiple stickers:

 

 

 

The reflex ports of the two 18W RMS speakers are also placed on the bottom:

 

 

 

 

One of the stickers describes the frontal LED (you will ask, what frontal LED?) signaling functions:

 

 

 

The status LED is located in front of the device and depending on how it flashes or what color it uses, we will know what state the device is in:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The product also ships with a registration card and an Owner’s manual:

 

 

 

The manual describes the main product components, how to perform the network connectivity procedure and how to play music from different sources:

 

 

 

Our Pure Contour 200i Air can function on both wired and wireless networks; Pure recommends us to use the wired connection to the router if we are experiencing audio quality problems or the device is really close to the wireless router. For modifying the setup, we will first have to establish a temporary wireless connection between the 200i and our Wi-Fi device like mobile phone, laptop or Wi-Fi enabled desktop. To do this, we’ll have to press the W-Fi Setup button in the back of the Contour for five seconds; this operation will turn on the temporary wireless network. The Status LED will flash red while the temp. network starts up. On our W-Fi enabled device, we will see the Contour 200i Air Wi-Fi network, to which we can connect, without the need to specify a password. After the connection has been completed, we can access the Contour Setup Manager by accessing in our favorite browser the http://192.168.1.12 address.

 

From the Connection menu, we can specify a custom name for our PURE device and specify the wireless network settings we want it connected to; we highly recommend using the “Configure Manually” option for this:

 

 

 

 

 

The Advanced tab lets us customize the network settings further and is split in two parts (proxy server settings and IP address settings):

 

 

 

The Status tab will display a summary of Contour’s software/hardware information, and here we will also find the status of the Wi-Fi connection:

 

 

 

Finally, the Upgrade tab (which is visible only when the Pure device is present on a wired connection) can help us reflash manually the device; Pure recommends, though, making use of the automatic update feature, which takes place when the Contour is in Standby or sleeping mode:

 

 

 

 

After a small reboot, if the connection is successfully done, we will be able to select the Contour 200i Air a s a device we can stream audio to on the iPad, iPhone or Mac:

 

 

 

 

With the latest update, Pure Lounge service has been renamed into PURE connect (requires iOS 5), sporting a brand new app icon; the intro screen will prompt us to login to the service, create a new account or access the app anyway:

 

 

With the application we can do lots of stuff like accessing Live Radio, On-Demand content, Pure Sounds or offline Music:

 

 

The Live Radio section lists plenty of available of stations that are streamed over the Internet:

 

 

From the On-Demand menu, we will be able to access several podcasts:

 

 

Pure Sounds menu lets us access a library of atmospheric natural or man-made sounds:

 

 

The audio content stored on our iDevice can be also accessed from Pure Connect:

 

 

Featured and exclusive content can be also accessed from the bottom menu boxes:

 

 

The More button reveals other available options:

 

 

By clicking on the Settings option, we will be able to see the currently installed app version, details regarding Login and the possibility to log into the Facebook and Twitter social channels:

 

 

 

While the last version of the Mac operating system supports full streaming via Wi-Fi (we can select the Contour device as an output device), Windows does not have this luxury and we’ll have to use other 3rd party software like Airfoil. Using the Contour 200i Air on wireless is very convenient, especially because we can stream to it from all other Apple mobile devices like the iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. Setting up the device to be used on our wireless network is not hard, if we follow the written instructions carefully that come inside the Owners’ Guide.

 

An interesting feature of the Contour 200i is the fact that even when it is in stand-by, if it receives audio via AirPlay, it will wake up automatically and play the respective audio content.

 

The quality of the audio Contour 200i Air gives is quite good considering the product size, giving clear highs, distinctive mids, but not a lot of bass, like the iHome iP1 had (but was more expensive). We can use the Contour successfully for playing regular music from the Internet radio sources, watching TV shows or even movies if it is not too far from us. If we do not have a Wi-Fi network available or the right equipment, we can still use the Contour device by using the Line-in jack port in the back or by docking our favorite iOS device onto it.

 

The small remote is similar to the ones found with previously reviewed docks, but we would have liked to see a small LCD in front of the device, which would show the mode it’s in at a specific moment, the volume levels or even the time.

 

Pure Connect is a free and fully featured app, also available for the iPhone and iPod; Pure Connect works on the iPad too, but it’s not currently optimized to work full screen.

 

Contour 200i Air will be available in Belgium for 269.99€ through Fnac.

 

Pure Contour 200i Air Music Streaming System Recommended For:

 

I would like to thank again to Pure for making this review possible!