Universal dock with FM Transmitter
Written by Philip Roy
October 22, 2008
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2.7 (1) |
Charging dock with Remote Control to use the built-in FM Transmitter to send iPhone music to your stereo and play it through your speakers. Works with iPods also.
User reviews
Average user rating from: 1 user(s)
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| Overall rating: |
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2.7 |
| Ease of Use: |
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3.0 |
| Help/Support Material: |
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2.0 |
| Value for Money: |
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3.0 |
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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful
Thanks to Toshcomputers.com for letting me try this dock out. I was impressed by the packaging at first which was very “Apple like”. However on opening the box, I discovered a remote that was less Apple like and had the world’s most difficult latch to open to check if a battery was included. It was, but was difficult to then put back in.
Attaching the USB charger cord and audio out was not a problem, however I don’t feel that the iPhone perhaps sits as comfortably in the dock as I would like.
One of the first things I noticed (with iTunes open) was that iTunes kept interrupting my attempts at using the dock, always trying to sync....so I quickly closed that application down, making sure it was just me and the dock in charge.
The dock works like other docks in that it charges your iPhone whilst also having an audio out option. My JBL speakers really didn’t like this option and hummed loudly with the connection....but I have to point out that my speakers are a little precious and even get upset with the standard iMac connection, although they seemed to cope with the Apple branded dock fine. Plugging a headphone in to make sure the connection worked produced far better results.
But what is really neat with this dock is that it will also transmit the audio via an FM frequency that you determine (with 6 FM channel options on the remote) to any radio nearby. In testing, all FM frequencies produced more or less the same results for me...which, with a radio 2 rooms away, wasn’t that great. You could certainly hear it and there wasn’t that much interference...it just wasn’t that loud.
Moving the dock into the room with the radio produced better results, but still, it was on the quiet side. If you jumped up to change the stereo to another channel quickly, you might suddenly be shocked with how loud you had the thing turned up to hear your iPhone.
The other issue is with the remote. You can’t control as much as you would hope with it. Play, back, forward and volume up and down are as much as you can do (or at least that is what I figured out with no instructions provided) so you have no way to navigate iTunes on your iPhone 3G. In other words, you’re likely to be going back to your iPhone now and then to make an appropriate selection.
With the performance of the FM transmitter I’m not sure this would be the way I would use it. I’m more likely to connect the audio jack straight to my stereo. Then again, I guess as a side effect, you also stream simultaneously to an FM frequency, so you could have the same music playing nearby.
For $49 the dock is a reasonable price however I found the iPhone fit a little uncomfortable. The dock also wouldn’t accept the iPhone in either case I put on it, meaning I would be forever taking it out of its case, so keep that in mind if you use a case.
That said, this would be a handy way of using your iPhone in a room without ever having to go back to it to adjust...once you selected all the song you wanted. At the same time, it is almost 50% cheaper than a similar dock from Apple that doesn’t include the FM transmitter option but does have a remote.
It was quite cool to sit down and see my iPhone working for me from the other side of the room and starts me wondering if I really am about to start doing away with CDs forever. Hmm...who knows?
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| Overall rating: |
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2.7 |
| Ease of Use: |
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3.0 |
| Help/Support Material: |
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2.0 |
| Value for Money: |
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3.0 |
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