Dock Your iPod! You May Have To Choose White.
Written: Jan 12 '07
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great sound. Easy installation. Convenient features.
Cons: Display feature only available on white model. Apparently discontinued in favor of white.
The Bottom Line: This was a great purchase, and well worth the normal price of about $100.
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| Vormancian's Full Review: SDI iHomeā¢ iH46B (Black) Remote Control for Appl... |
The quest began quite a while ago, and if you own an iPod you may be on a similar quest. And, if you’re like me, the quest is a confusing one. I just want to connect my iPod to some speakers… how hard (expensive) can that be? Of course, I’m sure you already know that despite the incredible advances in electronics, it is somehow beyond the scope of technology to connect speakers to an iPod for under $100. Okay, I could get those $10 things that you can plug into anything with a headphone jack, but that wasn’t what I was after.
The quest ended at Sam’s Club when I saw the “After Christmas One-Time Purchase We Don’t Want To Carry This Anymore Super Clearance Sale” on the iHome under-cabinet kitchen docking station. Like many such quests, this quest ended in a fashion shrouded in doubt and resignation. This was as much as I was ever going to spend on such a contraption, and if it wasn’t all I hoped for… so be it.
My luck being what it is, the little wonder turns out to be better than I dreamed, and easily a bargain at upwards of three times what I paid (which is the suggested retail price by the way).
Installation was very simple. There is an installation kit which comes with several spacers to accommodate the differing overhangs your kitchen cabinets may have. Anything from 0” – 2 ¼” is covered. Two sheets of paper come with kit to guide you in drilling holes, and they were quite easy to use. The whole thing took about five minutes.
The unit itself works beautifully and simply, in keeping with the iPod standard we have all grown to love. The picture you see shows the unit with the iPod dock open, thus you can see the iPod. The dock retracts into the unit when closed, and the iPod can be played while within the unit, but you can only (obviously, I guess) skip forward and back in the playlist currently set on the iPod. For switching playlists and other options, the iPod must be out as shown in the picture.
Speaking of docking, the unit will accommodate just about any iPod with the aid of dock inserts which are included. iPod mini, iPod 3G, 4G, and 5G, as well as iPod photo and iPod nano are all supported. The literature suggests that the Thin and Thick variety of iPod 3G, 4G, and 5G can both be used, but I don’t even actually know what that means.
A docked iPod is, as I’m sure you would assume in any case, a charging iPod, which adds to the beauty of the product, though this is certainly a standard feature of any similar system.
The display for the unit includes the time and date, and frequency information for use with the radio functions. It also includes a timer which I’m led to understand is handy in the kitchen. The radio features FM1 and FM2 (no AM), and a weather broadcast mode which receives from some manner of national weather service. The unit also has a TV mode which receives the audio transmission from your local television stations. The exact usefulness of this feature eludes me slightly, but if you can come up with something the option is there for you.
The buttons on the unit are:
Power. Timer. Dock Open/Close. 4 buttons for radio presets. Select Up/Down which serves the function of going to the next song when using iPod, and tuning when using the radio. Mode – which obviously switches between iPod, radio, weather, and TV. Volume. And, Mute.
These functions are all accessible using a remote which comes with the unit.
By far the best thing about this system is the speaker system. There is little I am able to learn about the speakers, except that they are “Reson8 speakers for full, rich sound.” That may mean something to someone, but the result is that they are very impressive. The sound produced from such a small unit is far better than I would ever have imagined. I couldn’t ask for better quality sound for the purpose.
A quick visit to the iHome website leads me to believe that this exact model is discontinued. The i36W is on the website, which as far as I can tell is the same model in white, but this model is not listed. The i36W also claims that the display will give you song information when the iPod is closed into the dock, which this one will not, but other than that they appear to be identical.
All in all, this was a fantastic purchase, especially considering the ridiculous prices you can pay for similar systems. Even at retail this is a great bargain. If you can get it for anything below that, but it immediately.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Vormancian
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Member: Marc Eastman
Location: Bangor,ME
Reviews written: 329
Trusted by: 351 members
About Me:
Evangeline Sylvan Betty Eastman. AKA "Cricket" 9/12/06
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