review: Griffin iTrip DualConnect FM and AUX-in charger for iPhone and iPod

by Bill Palmer

Griffin’s iTrip, which allows an iPod’s music to be broadcast to a car’s FM radio, is nearly as old as the iPod itself. But FM transmission is not always the answer, particularly if you live in an urban or even suburban area, and more recently cars have begun to come with line-in ports for connecting iPods and iPhones with a much greater degree of audio quality. Accordingly, Griffin launched the AutoPilot, a line-in product with a built-in charger along with playback controls on the charging head. But with the new iTrip DualConnect, Griffin is dipping its chocolate into the proverbial peanut butter to see if these two disparate products are meant to go together. And the results are, to say the least, intriguing.

The obvious first question is why you’d want an FM transmitter at all if your car has a line-in port. But setting that aside for the moment, the DualConnect is a nice solid product in terms of what it offers. Its charging head controls are a sleeker design than was the case with the AutoPilot, replacing the hard plastic buttons with a nice satiny feel. And interestingly enough, you could actually use the DualConnect with your own cassette adapter if you want, thanks to the fact that the included line-in cable is detachable instead of built-in.

As far as the FM transmitter aspect of the DualConnect, it’s a mixed verdict. iPhone and iPod touch users will love the fact that fine-tuning the FM radio station you’re going to broadcast on is now done through a well-designed App Store app, whereas years ago this process was done with a manual knob, as odd as that sounds here in 2010. But even with the long time popularity of the iTrip, Griffin’s FM signal strength has only ever been merely okay, with competitors like Monster, Belkin, and Kensington having offered FM transmitters with a stronger signal at various times over the years, and that trend continues with the DualConnect. To be clear, the audio itself sounds fine. But using an FM transmitter is a battle to find a completely dead-silent station on your local FM dial, and residents of the big city and the suburbs know there’s no such thing in their neck of the woods. It’s why FM transmitters in general are only recommendable if you can’t use either a line-in or a cassette adapter, unless you live in a town of four hundred people where there only a few FM radio stations on the dial to begin with.

So far the DualConnect scores for a nice hardware design, a great FM transmitter interface, but only an okay FM transmitter signal strength. That brings us back to the question of just whom this product is for. The most obvious candidate is a family with more than one car, only one of which has line-in functionality, and the family wants to be able to move the DualConnect back and forth between vehicles. Another option is a traveler who frequently rents cars and doesn’t know what they’re in for. In fact when I know I’ll be renting a car on a trip, I travel with an FM transmitter just in case it ends up being my only option.

All that said, the audience for the iTrip DualConnect doesn’t feel particularly large. It’s one of those products which by virtue of being so versatile and theoretically usable by so many people, it oxymoronically limits its practical audience to only those people who need all of its features. And for that particular niche of people, it’s worth its $59 price tag. But don’t buy this product if you don’t plan to use both its FM transmitter functionality and its line-in functionality at one point or another.

rating: four stars out of five • price: $59 • GriffinTechnology.com

Best car accessories of 2009

iProng Magazine’s best iPhone and iPod car accessories for 2009:

First Look: Monster iCarPlay FM

New in iProng Labs: a first look at the new iCarPlay 800 and 1000 FM transmitters for iPhone and iPod from Monster, priced at $79 and $99, respectively…

by Bill Palmer

Monster’s latest FM transmitter solutions for connecting your iPhone or iPod to your car’s stereo system come in two models with different prices and vastly different looking interfaces, but the functionality of the 800 ($79) and the 1000 ($99) is largely similar on paper. In addition to charging your iPhone or iPod and and offering three programmable FM presets, both products scan the FM spectrum to automatically find the emptiest frequency while promising to block out any cellphone signal interference (a relief to iPhone users).

Aside from the styling, the primary difference out of the box appears to be that the 1000 sports a USB that allows you to charge a second USB-based device while in your car, which could be handy for those users who also need to keep GPS and bluetooth devices, etc., charged up while on the road. Monster also claims that the USB port on the 1000 can be connected to your computer and used to broadcast your computer’s audio to an FM stereo in your house.

FM car transmitter products require significant road testing to determine signal quality, so our full hands-on review will be posted in one to two weeks.

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Learn more about the iCarPlay FM 800 and iCarPlay FM 1000 at MonsterCable.com

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