Majority’s Little Shelford was a likeable little radio, but it had a nagging flaw: on the move, it leaned on four AA batteries for its 15 hours of play, and that adds up fast if you’re a regular listener. The new Mini Shelford quietly fixes that with a built-in 2600mAh rechargeable battery good for up to 20 hours of runtime — no more raiding the drawer for spares.
The design has been reshuffled, too. Where the Little stood tall, the Mini is shorter and wider, though it keeps the same retro charm that made its sibling easy to like. It’s the kind of thing that looks at home on a kitchen counter or a bedside table without shouting about its feature list.
Under that vintage exterior, the connectivity is thoroughly modern. There’s Bluetooth for streaming playlists, podcasts and audio from your phone, plus DAB+/FM radio for when you’d rather let the airwaves do the choosing. Prefer to keep things private? A 3.5mm socket lets you plug in wired headphones.
Majority hasn’t skimped on the details you actually use day to day. A full-colour display shows album art and track information, and control comes via a rotary dial — a tactile touch that suits the throwback styling. Round things out with a dual alarm and a sleep timer, and you’ve got a radio that’s just as happy waking you up as it is winding you down.
Here’s the clever part: despite adding a rechargeable cell, the Mini Shelford is only a few pounds pricier than the Little. It went on sale in August at £49.95 (around $67), which is impressive value given what you’re getting.
Colour choices span four finishes to suit different rooms and tastes:
- Dusty Rose
- Olive
- Black
- Cream
Majority has built its reputation on packing plenty of features into affordable audio gear, and the Mini Shelford is a neat continuation of that. By swapping disposable AAs for an internal battery — and stretching runtime to 20 hours in the process — it takes the one criticism we had of the Little Shelford and turns it into a selling point. For a portable radio that costs less than a fifty-pound note, that’s a genuinely tidy upgrade.
