It’s the perfect time of year for grabbing a cheap radio for the garden, and they don’t come much cuter, more packed…

Majority unveils its compact Mini Shelford

It is a DAB+ and FM radio, that also doubles as Bluetooth speaker

There's a headphone jack, sleep timer and alarm too

Despite the recent death of long-wave, there's a lot to be said for radio listening, so you can tune in to sports broadcasts or catch the news when there's no mobile signal to speak of.

And now Majority has a new option, which is tiny, adorable-looking, as well as being lovely and cheap. This is the Mini Shelford (not to be confused with Great Shelford, a village just outside Cambridge, UK).

Costing just £49 (about $65, AU$100), the Mini Shelford goes on sale in August. It's a smaller version of another Majority radio, called the Little Shelford, with many of the same features but an even smaller footprint.

There are four finishes of the Mini to choose from: black, white, pink or green, and they're all adorable.

Chock-full of features

As you'd imagine, the Mini Shelford lets you listen to DAB+ and FM radio. You could still have enjoyed the Wimbledon final if you happened to be in a signal dark spot, then (not that I speak from experience or anything).

But the Shelford also works as a Bluetooth speaker: pairing a device lets you use the speaker to listen to audio content from your phone or other source device. Majority recommends it for "podcasts or audiobooks," implying the drivers aren't really tuned for music that hasn't already been devastated by the FM radio signal.

With a color display, the Shelford offers a few other useful features too, including an alarm clock and sleep timer. It has a headphone jack too, so you can go with wired audio if you want to listen to Radio 4 without anyone else knowing.

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As you can probably tell by the name, the Mini Shelford is pretty small; Majority says the footprint is "13cm" though it's not clear what that means, and there's no weight provided.

Either way, it's portable so you can take it into the garden or move it around your bedroom. There's a rechargeable battery, although Majority hasn't announced how long it'll last. How does it sound? Leave it with us, we'd love to find out…

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Tom Bedford is a freelance contributor covering tech, entertainment and gaming. Beyond TechRadar, he has bylines on sites including GamesRadar, Digital Trends, Android Police, TechAdvisor, WhattoWatch and BGR. From 2019 to 2022 he was on the TechRadar team as the staff writer and then deputy editor for the mobile team.