Review: Altec inMotion Classic

review by Bill Palmer

When Apple appends the word “classic” to the name of one of its products, it’s typically an intentional death knell: the gradual phase-out begins immediately, and there will be no significant upgrades to the product in the mean time. But apparently Altec Lansing has a different definition of the word, as the new “inMotion Classic” (also known as the iMT620) includes a number of revisions and enhancements despite having largely the same feature set on paper as its predecessor, the iM600.



Not that the two look anything like each other. Gone is the all-black, rounded corner design of the iM600 in favor of Altec Lansing’s current favored trapezoidal styling of black and silver with gold trim, with the clearly defined line giving the illusion that the Classic is smaller when it’s really about the same size as its predecessor (actually about an inch wider left to right). The biggest functional change is that the old flip-out dock has been replaced a recessed one, and the unit now stands upright thanks to a swing-out arm that acts as a stand (and can also be folded straight up and used as a carrying handle). Perhaps it’s this simplification that allowed room in the budget for other new features. The bundled remote control now includes the ability to navigate up and down your iPhone’s or iPod’s menus. And the LCD screen, which was kind of a waste on the iM600 because it only displayed the track info from FM radio and not from songs playing on your iPod, now rectifies that. It still misidentifies your iPhone as an “iPod” but that’s being picky.



Audio quality is marginally improved on the Classic. It wasn’t immediately noticeable when I put the Classic and iM600 side by side, but it became more apparent when I got to songs that were more bass-heavy. I wouldn’t suggest ditching your iM600 in favor of the Classic based on the slightly improved audio quality alone; it’s the other features that make this a significant upgrade.



In fact, perhaps surprisingly, the Classic pretty much wipes the floor with Logitech’s new competing S315i, which is twenty dollars cheaper but doesn’t come all that close on audio quality and doesn’t come with a remote, or offer a built-in radio or an LCD screen or a built-in handle. However, the Classic falls down significantly in comparison to the S315i in one area: battery life. Both products include a built-in rechargeable lithium battery. But while the S315i offers ten hours of battery life (twenty in “reduced audio quality” mode), the Classic offers a comparatively meager five hours – and that’s with the Classic being about twenty percent thicker front to back than the S315i. It’s not quite as head-scratching as Altec’s slightly larger MAX, which only offers 3.5 hours of battery life, but it’s still unfortunate that the Classic offers only half the battery life of its primary competitor, when it otherwise outpaces it in just about every way.



And that alone keeps the Classic from being a five star product, despite the fact that overall it’s the best portable iPod/iPhone system at the sub-$150 price point to ever hit the market.



There’s one other issue with the Classic which initially threw me off and eventually grew to feel like a very minor thing, but worth mentioning if for no other reason than future reference: the on-board control buttons, which were semi-randomly split between the top surface and the docking well of the old iM600, have been smartly all placed on the top of the Classic. However, they’ve been centered in such a way that the two buttons you’re likely to use most often during playback, volume up and volume down, are directly behind the docking well. With a shorter device like an iPod nano they’re still visible, but my iPhone stood tall enough to hide them, at least when I had the Classic sitting at eye level. And so the first few times I reached for the volume I absent-mindedly rammed my fingers into my iPhone. Within my first day with the unit I’d gotten very used to accessing them easily, and I’m a klutz to begin with. But the six topside buttons really should be split left and right of the dock on the next iteration of this product. Ultimately, however, I felt that this wasn’t something that should affect the product’s rating, particularly since the new button layout does make more sense than the previous iterations’ scattershot placement.



Consider the Logitech S315i if you place battery life above all else. But otherwise, Altec Lansing’s Classic is your winner for portable systems at this price point – by a long shot.

Learn more about the inMotion Classic at AltecLansing.com.