review: Logitech Speaker Lapdesk N700

by Bill Palmer

The days of using a “laptop” computer on your lap are falling by the wayside thanks to the increased processing power of today’s laptops and the resulting heat which gets applied directly to your lap if you’re not careful. Logitech’s Lapdesk N700 attempts to resolve that and in fact goes whole hog with additional features. The product is close to two feet wide, with a hard plastic top surface and upholstered on bottom, designed to sit over your knees. It’s as large as it is because of what it’s also got built in.

Attempting to correct another widespread laptop deficiency in the form of cruddy built-in speakers, the Lapdesk has speakers built into it, which are powered by your laptop via a built-in USB cable, no electrical outlet involved. The speakers sound pretty good, significantly better than any built-in Mac or PC laptop speakers I’ve heard. They don’t measure up to the best $79 standalone computer speakers on the market, but that’s to be expected considering the nature of the product. On board volume controls allow you to adjust the volume of the speakers independent of your laptop’s volume. That’s redundant if your laptop has easily accessible volume controls of its own, but no harm done in that case.

Also built into the Lapdesk is a fan, which is nice because I found it to be completely silent with my laptop sitting on top of it, and it prevented my laptop’s own built-in fans from coming on, which do make noise when they run. The fan can be toggled on or off.

The verdict? From a usability standpoint, it’s a fairly comfy product. It is on the large side, however (there’s also a smaller model, the N550, not tested). Basically, you’ve got to be looking to take advantage of the speakers for the product’s size or price tag to be worth it, as otherwise there are plenty of lapdesks out there that are less bulky and less expensive that don’t have speakers built in. But if the feature set of the Logitech Lapdesk N700 meets your needs, you could get quite a bit of enjoyment out of it.

Price: $69 • Logitech.com

review: Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Mini Dockable Stereo

While the original Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin stereo system got its name for literally being shaped like a blimp, the Zeppelin Mini takes a far more conservative design approach by adopting a cylindrical shape which takes up a smaller footprint. But the Mini might evoke nearly as many oohs and ahs from those who spot it, thanks to a couple of design flairs of its own. Across the top is a curved mirrored surface, which tilts forward enough to cast a visible reflection of the room toward onlookers. And the iPhone or iPod, rather than docking within the unit’s space, sits atop it on a docking perch. The perch even rotates to allow you to watch video on your iPhone or iPod’s screen, making it perhaps the best-sounding mini movie theater experience ever.

The Mini’s audio quality is, in a word, brilliant – as it should be for this price (officially $399 but findable on sites like Amazon for $299). However, and perhaps it’s due to the efforts made to make the Mini so small, as it’s barely three inches front to back, something is lost from the absolutely stunning audio quality of its larger full-sized $599 Zeppelin. In fact, the Mini doesn’t even quite measure up to the best similarly priced systems on the market, as its audio is closer to that of iHome’s $199 iP3 than iHome’s $299 iP1.

I was about to be disappointed in the lack of on-board volume controls, until I found them tucked away on the right side of the unit – a clever design touch. I mention this because they’ve been so well integrated into the design that some users may not even know they’re there.

Hate to say it, but if you’re buying the Zeppelin Mini for $399 or even $299, you’re doing so at least partially for its design flair. And if you’re going to do that, you might as well opt for the larger model, which actually looks like a Zeppelin. Still, the Mini is a quite a high quality product – but it’s not in the top tier for its price range.

review by Bill Palmer

rating: four stars out of five • Bowers-Wilkins.com

review: iHome iP90 stereo alarm for iPhone and iPod

You’ve got to hand it to iHome for taking some major stylistic chances with the sixth generation of its $99 dockable stereo alarm clock. Although competitors have come and gone, the iHome product (which started life as the iH5 years ago and is now the iP90) has generally been the market leader at its price point – and with the iP9 iteration last year, it felt like the product line had essentially reached perfection. So what did iHome do? Well, it went retro.

But before I get into the iP90’s styling, here’s what hasn’t changed since the last version: this product offers better audio than any other sub-$100 single unit dockable stereo system for iPhone or iPod, which is remarkable considering that many of those competing products don’t even offer alarm functionality. As has been the case with each version, the audio is a slight yet noticeable improvement over the previous generation. And the alarm built into the iP90 includes dual alarm settings along with an AM/FM radio and an included remote control with a host of functions built into it. In other words, it’s a winner, and that hasn’t changed.

But the stylistic redesign is a little more troubling. Setting aside whether or not it matches my personal styling preferences, my concern is that the digital numbers, by virtue of trying to look retro, don’t feel quite as easy to read as with previous generations, and the gut feeling is that the design changes aren’t a net positive for most consumers over the previous iP9. None of that changes the fact that the iP90 is the premier sub-$100 dockable stereo system on the market. You’ll have to judge for yourself as to whether the styling changes are agreeable or even matter to you.

rating: 4.5 stars out of five • iHomeAudio.com

JBL introduces new stereo systems

Review: EOS Wireless for iPod

Wireless iPod speaker systems have arrived in various incarnations over the years, the most successful to date being Griffin’s $349 Evolve, whose pair of built-in speakers can be picked up and carried around with you while continuing to play the music coming from your iPod docked in the base station. Now EOS offers up a different paradigm in which the base station is a stationary speaker itself, there’s a wireless speaker in the box, and a second/third/fourth wireless unit can optionally be added.



It sounds good in theory, and from a wireless perspective, works automatically and flawlessly right out of the box. Dock your iPod (or, unofficially, iPhone) into the base station, start playing your music, and you’ll hear it coming of the base station along with the wireless speaker(s), wherever you’ve placed them. If that’s in another room or even outside, no problem, as long as it’s less than about 150 feet away. Each unit has its own adjustable volume, and the base station includes a remote control.



Two things hold the EOS Wireless back from its full potential. One is that the wireless speakers each need to be plugged into the wall for electricity (they can hang directly from the outlet, which is pretty cool, or be placed further away from it via the power cable). But unlike the Evolve, whose speakers are portable, these can’t be moved around the house on a whim without finding a new electrical outlet each time.



The other issue is the sound quality. We’re talking serious money here: $249 for the base station and the one wireless speaker; $149 for each additional speaker. Trouble is, though, that the base station itself doesn’t sound any better than typical sub-$100 iPod speaker systems on the market, with too much treble, not enough bass, and no ability to adjust that ratio. Fire up the included wireless speaker in the same room and it sounds better overall, but that already puts you at $249 before you start adding more wireless speakers. In other words, it’s only worth its hefty price tag if you plan to take full advantage of the wireless functionality – otherwise spend your money on one of the plethora of much better-sounding non-wireless systems in this price range.



Learn more at EOSwireless.com

Logitech Pure-Fi Anytime

Logitech makes some of the best-sounding dockable speaker systems on the market in the $150-$300 range, so what happens when the company scales down to the sub-$100 range and adds alarm clock functionality to the mix? The result is the Pure-Fi Anytime, a boxy-looking, acrylic black system for iPhone and iPod.



The prerequisites for a suitable iPod/iPhone alarm clock system are all there: dual alarms for couples, tri-level brightness adjustment for the display, and the ability to wake to AM/FM radio or a buzzer in addition to the music on your iPhone or iPod. When the alarm goes off, the volume of the music fades in gradually so as not to stun you while waking you up. And as a bonus, you don’t actually have to press the snooze button in order to get yourself another ten minutes of sleep – all you have to do is wave your hand over the snooze button. That last part actually works, by the way. Whether it’ll be of use to you probably depends on just how groggy and confused you typically are when an alarm clock first wakes you up.



But a speaker system has to be judged first and foremost on its audio quality, and in a saturated market you have to put it head to head with the top competing products at that price point. In this case that competitor is iHome’s $99 iH5, and the bottom line is that the while Anytime sounds acceptable for its price, the iH5 sounds noticeably better.



So why consider the Anytime, then? You might prefer the design, which isn’t as thick as the iH5 front to back. And even though the Anytime is a taller unit, the iPhone/iPod sits so much lower that the result is actually shorter overall. And depending on how you wake up each morning, the touch-free controls might be enough to make you overlook the fact that better audio quality in an iPhone/iPod alarm clock is available for the same price elsewhere.

Learn more at Logitech.com

Altec Lansing Expressionist Plus

We don’t often review speaker systems that don’t include a dock for iPhone or iPod. But at the same time we know that most iPhone and iPod users have the same (or more) content in iTunes on their computer, and most stock computer speakers leave something to be desired when it comes to movie or music playback.



Among the more promising sub-$100 computer speaker systems to come along in awhile, at least based on specs, is Altec Lansing’s brand new Expressionist Plus. The subwoofer is about six inches tall and ten inches wide at its base, shaped like a lampshade but featuring reflective black acrylic material (similar to the back surface of an iPhone) that makes it look sleeker than any lampshade you’ve seen. The tweeters each have their own metal frame stand, making them look like something out of a Pixar movie.



Of course styling is a matter personal of taste, and what really counts is what they sound like. Suffice it to say that this is the best sounding sub-$100 three piece system I’ve ever heard. You can turn it loud enough to literally make the walls shake without noticeable distortion in the audio, and then you realize it can be turned even louder. But it sounds plenty good at soft settings as well. Overall they deliver a crisp immersive sound that makes the three pieces sound like they’re a lot further apart than they really are.



Peeves? The knob to adjust the subwoofer volume is on the sub itself, kind of a pain to reach if you’ve placed the sub on the floor beneath your desk. The tweeter stands take up a little more room on the desktop than they probably should. And of course you’ve got to buy into the unconventional styling. But if do, then these speakers are a great option for playing music and especially watching movies on your computer.



iHome iP71 for iPhone and iPod

Where has this product been for the last six years? Ever since Apple launched the third-generation iPod with a bottom dock connector port six years ago, users have been able to purchase dockable speaker systems but have been faced with the perplexing if not quite nightmarish quandary: do I want to buy dockable speakers so I can play music directly from my iPod, or do I want to buy computer speakers and play my music from iTunes instead? And while some dockable iPod and iPhone speaker systems of the years have included a line-in port which technically allowed them to be connected to a computer, most of those systems have been designed in a way that made the whole thing awkward looking and oddly out of place.



But here comes iHome’s iP71, a speaker system whose shape and industrial design suggest that they’re the natural born soulmate of Apple’s Aluminum iMac and MacBook line, or a similarly themed PC. The pair of speakers sit on opposite sides of your computer, much like any other computer system, but with a single fundamental difference: the left speaker includes a built-in dock for iPhone or iPod. In other words, this gives you, hypothetically at least, the best of both worlds: you can, without having to change anything around at all, play music through the speakers from either your docked iPhone/iPod or iTunes on your computer – or for that matter, any and all other audio coming from your computer.



What if you’ve got audio coming from both sources at the same time? You hear them both. This is just the way you want it, as you might be listening to music from your iPhone but also want to hear any alert sounds from your computer. Syncing your iPhone or iPod with your computer while it’s docked is accomplished by connecting the iP71 to your computer with not one but two cables: an audio cable and a USB cable, the latter of which allows you to sync while docked. But while docking is generally something that happens automatically when you dock your iPhone or iPod, with the iP71 it’s manually triggered by a small button on the top of the left speaker.



This initially seemed odd at best, but I’ve actually come to prefer it to auto-sync; my computer often wants to install app updates on my iPhone, or go through a long backup process, and so syncing has become a much longer process than back in the old days where “syncing” simply meant a few songs. But these days there are plenty of times where I just want to dock my iPhone into the speaker system and play some music without first having to wait for a several-minute sync process to take place before I regain access to my iPhone’s music controls, and the iP71 allows just that.



My issues with the iP71 are actually of a more basic variety: they’re $129 speakers that don’t sound quite as good as, for instance, JBL’s $99 Duet II speakers, and yet thanks the their slanted design the iP71 take up a much larger footprint on my desk. And while the iP71 does come with an full featured remote, it’s not enough to overcome the fact that the audio quality doesn’t quite measure up. Except that in my case it apparently is enough, as the iP71 speakers still haven’t left my desk even after I finished my testing – and despite the fact that I have a number of better-sounding speaker systems sitting around the office, the convenience of being able to play my music out of either my iPhone or my computer with no toggling needed. The iP71 doesn’t sound bad by any measure, it just doesn’t measure up to the best comparably priced sized speakers. But as a laptop user whose built-in speakers are unacceptable for music playback, I’ve grown tired of having two different speaker systems on my desk – and the iP71 is simply too convenient of a solution to pass up.



This product may not make sense to users who only ever plays music through speakers via their iPhone/iPod OR their computer. And like all combo products, you’re going to pay a little more for the flexibility that comes with it than if you were to simply purchase comparable computer-specific speakers and an iPhone/iPod dock separately. But if the iP71 sounds like a product you never knew you always wanted, don’t let my mere four star rating stop you; it hasn’t stopped me.



iHome iP9 for iPhone and iPod

Once upon a time iHome got the idea to build an alarm clock that not only docked with your iPod but allowed you to wake up to your iPod’s music, and an entire industry was born. A few years later and we’ve got companies releasing everything from extravagant several hundred dollar iPod alarm clocks with dozens of built-in features to inexpensive fold-up iPod alarm clocks that fit easily in your suitcase and everything in between.



And now here comes the iP9, the fifth generation of iHome’s own original iPod alarm clock (the original version was called the “iH5” if that helps you understand the nomenclature a little better), and while it doesn’t necessarily look that different from the original, it turns out the iP9 runs circles around it for the same original $99 price tag. And equally important for a certain segment of users, it works with the iPhone. Which wasn’t always a given.



First there was the iH9, which was essentially the same product as the iP9 but wasn’t shielded against cellular signals and was therefore essentially unusable with an iPhone (unless you count putting your iPhone in airplane mode to be “usable” anywhere but on an airplane, which I don’t). Then there was the $149-priced iP99 which was iPhone-compatible but was otherwise just a minimal step up from the iH9, meaning that iPhone users were essentially paying a $50 surcharge. But now the iP9 gets it right on all counts. It works equally well with the iPhone and the iPod, offers audio quality superior to any other sub-$100 iPod/iPhone alarm clock product on the market, the dual alarm clocks that so many iH5 users used to complain about not not having back in the day, and the remote control that used to cost $20 extra is now included the $99 package. In fact that remote control has also come a long way as it now offers EQ adjustment as well as the ability to navigate up and down your iPhone or iPod’s hierarchal menus (so long as you’re standing close enough to your iPhone or iPod to be able to read its screen). Throw in the built-in AM/FM radio with presets, and the value proposition keeps increasing.



Suffice it to say that iHome’s flagship $99 alarm clock product has come a long way in the four years since it first hit the market. Being picky would be asking why it now only comes in a choice of black or grey and no longer in the original white, but I suppose that would be like asking Apple why there’s no longer a white iPod on the market.



And of course there are other options out there. Altec Lansing’s Moondance Glow alarm clock (which is annoyingly still incompatible with the iPhone) offers superior qudio quality and a wider set of features, but it also comes with a $179 price tag which puts it in an entirely different category. And iHome’s own iP99 is still around, with its price now reduced to $129, but since it doesn’t offer $30 worth of additional audio quality I can only recommend the iP99 over the iP9 to those users who strongly prefer the iP99’s more tunnel-like styling. And of course Chestnut Hill’s $499 George alarm clock is in a category unto its own.



The bottom line is that the iP9 is the best sub-$100 iPod/iPhone alarm clock product on the market, an impressive fact considering that companies like Logitech and XtremeMac (and too many others to list) have been nipping at iHome for years with impressive alarm clock offerings of their own. And those competing products will continue to come to market as more iPod and iPhone users decide they want to wake up to their own music (and of course we’ll review those products as they do).



But right now my money is on the iP9. If $99 is your budget and you’re not looking for a portable alarm clock (iHome and various competitors offer those as well), the iP9 is hands-down the best alarm clock stereo system for use with your iPhone or iPod.