Herculodge Reader Has Reason to be Optimistic about His Tecsun PL-310

Kevin S, anticipating his Tecsun PL-310 in the next week or so, writes:

I ordered one a few days ago from a Taobao agent, and there at least 2-3 guys I know of that have ordered them today off of eBay, so hopefully we will get a good read on how well the DSP chip implementation is on this model. It's a little larger than the G8 (it looks like it has the PL-450's case), so the whip antenna should be a little longer and therefore improve the already-stellar FM performance of the G8. It should have decent sensitivity and killer selectivity on AM, and a Chinese reviewer said that Tecsun fixed the SW reception (the G8 is terrible on SW).

Comments

[stetsi]

Yes, case dimensions of the PL-310 are the same as the PL-450. Apart from the PL-310’s DSP, some of the main differences between the two models appear to be:
PL-450 has double conversion on AM and SW; PL-310 hasn’t.
PL-450 has broad/narrow bandwidth option; PL-310 has multiple (5) AM bandwidth options, similar to other new DSP models.
PL-450 has high low/tone switch, PL-310 has no tone option.
PL-450 has FM fine tuning wheel, PL-310 hasn’t.
PL-450 has Local/Norm/DX Antenna gain switch, PL-310 hasn’t.
PL-450 has old style power socket, and comes with old style power adapter; PL-310 has USB power/charging socket, and comes with USB cable only – no power adapter. This seems to be a trend in new model portables. I don’t suppose it makes much difference to you 110v guys, and it obviously saves on retail and postage costs.

The PL-450 (at least my example) is poor on AM, mainly due to poorly chosen bandwidths: I can’t get audio quality/selectivity balance right. You’d like to think the PL-310 improves on that.

[stetsi]

Another important difference: PL-410 has full SW coverage; PL-310 covers 2300KHz to 21950KHz.