Memorex MA2213 Ultra Portable Travel Speaker for iPod and iPhone

• Headphone storage compartment
• iPod and iPhone compatible
• AC Power Adaptor

THE GOOD:

First off, the sound of this unit is surprisingly great. Rich, deep, good bass -and wow, it can fill a room. Even sounds good at high volumes, little to no distortion. It sounded much better than the JBL On Stage unit I was comparing it to.

As an experiment, I put it on a stand, then sat in a deep armchair a few feet away. I put on my sunglasses and turned it on, and it whipped my hair back and forth, and all the furniture around me blew away.

The portability is awesome -stable base, convenient handle. It's larger than I expected, but still works on a table or cabinet. Bonus points for having an AC *and* battery option (AA).

But there are other concerns, and it didn't work correctly with my iPhone 4S.

THE NOT-SO-GOOD

First, physical support -like all charger-docks, the iPhone/iPod is just sitting on the connector. Although this has a support "wall," your iThing doesn't rest against it -so while it would prevent an iPod from falling out backwards, there's otherwise no real support. When I carried it to another room, I had to be very careful -and still, my iPhone would come loose. (Twice when this happened, I couldn't get the iPhone to reconnect -had to do a lot of wiggling and power the unit off/on.)

Second, the buttons on the unit didn't work with my iPhone 4S. It has play/pause/skip, but none of them did anything. (Except make the clock light up.) I really wish it had a remote -that would have helped.

Third -when I'm listening to music at home, I'm often grabbing the iPhone to jot a note or make a list or whatever. It's never convenient to pull your phone off a dock, but it's a real hassle with this unit, because the handle creates an awkward enclosed space.

On a related note, that makes it awkward to use the onscreen controls too. And the physical buttons are at a difficult angle, not intuitive or easy to use. Again, a remote would be a great addition.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I really wanted this to work out. But ultimately, what undid it for me was how easily the iPhone wiggles loose, and the hassle of removing the iPhone when I needed it. If you won't need to use your iDevice much while you listen, you may be happy with it. Kudos to Memorex for the sound.

Buy Memorex MA2213 Ultra Portable Travel Speaker for iPod and iPhone Now

I bought this portable speaker for a small barbeque it works wonderfully. It has great sound for the back yard or beach. It plays loud but if there are over 100 people or more and babies crying that are making loud noise then you might not hear it. Love that it has an AC adapter for inside and 4 AA batteries for the out doors. Also that it looks like a small purse and it doesn't weigh too much. The bad is that there is No FM preset radio stations or remote. And Also it has a FM antenna cord not a metal one that's built in.