Raf_K's Full Review: Altec Lansing inMotion™ iM3 (Black) Speaker Syst...
I’ve had the Altec Lansing In Motion 3 (IM3) for about a year now. I bought them at the same time as my Ipod Photo as I was looking for something I could use to share my music with friends when I’m away from home.
As it happens, I have friends scattered around a few continents, and even in London they tend to be scattered around the city (if you’re familiar with London you’ll know that this is a huge problem as it can take you hours to get from one end to the other, but I digress). My main idea was therefore to have speakers which were portable enough for me to take to a friend’s house and share some of my music with them. At the same time, I was also looking for something powerful enough that I could use as a secondary stereo, to keep in my bedroom.
PROS
Having first considered something like the Harman Soundsticks or JBL’s Creature, I quickly changed my mind as they are pretty much impractical to move around and would require a separate dock. Besides, I really wanted something I could just stick batteries into and go for a camping trip.
At around U$150 (including some headphones), these speakers certainly aren’t cheap – in fact that’s pretty much what I paid for the Ipod on the same purchase. But boy, have these little guys performed wonderfully!
Sound clarity:
The sound is clear, and experiences no distortion at medium-high volumes. Similar-sized and priced products such as the JBL On Stage and the smaller JBL On Tour do present quite a bit of distortion at higher volumes. The IM3 on the other hand is perfectly adequate for a small (dinner) party and pack quite a punch for its size.
Portability:
The IM3 also has a smart design whereas it can be folded flat and works with batteries - this makes it a winner for me, as you can just put it in a daypack and carry it away. Again, another smart move is that it comes with a set of travel plug adaptors that you can just switch, thus eliminating the need for bulky adaptors as you travel abroad. And finally, you can take it even to the most isolated places as it’ll run on batteries. Battery life is extremely good – I must’ve used mine on batteries for about 20h over the last year and haven’t needed a change yet!
Remote:
Finally, another handy feature is that it comes with a tiny remote. It works fine, but has limited appeal as you can obviously not switch between playlists or albums, only jump forward and backwards within a playlist.
CONS
I’ve got two minor qualms with the IM3. Firstly, it always charges your Ipod. While this means you can use it as a charger, it also means that every single time you want to listen to music through the speakers, your Ipod will get charged. Whether this actually reduces battery life is debatable, but it could be a reason for concern.
The second thing is that these speakers don’t go on standby. Thus, if you put the Ipod on sleep mode, the Ipod turns itself off but the speakers stay on all night. Conversely, if you want to set the alarm clock on the Ipod to wake up to your favourite playlist, you have to leave the IM3 on all night: a bit annoying having that bright red light at night on your bedside table.
Final thoughts
As I said, these are reasonably minor annoyances, which could probably be addressed in future versions, which are probably due in the near future for the Ipod video range. But for now, this is a great product. It has as good a sound quality as the Logitech mm50 but are more compact.
So, what are you waiting for? Take your music around!
Ultraportable Batteryoperated Stereo System Is The Perfect Companion For Your Ipod. Highly Efficient Class D Amplifier Powers 4 Fullrange Micro Driver...More at Target
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.