Ipod 5g Tunefm W/Dock Connector

On 10 December 2006, low power portable transmitters like this one became legal for the first time in the UK.

Nice, and just in time for Christmas.

But how good actually is it?

Well, the answer is, brilliant, most of the time. That is, if you plug it into the car cigarette lighter with the adapter (supplied), find an FM frequency that isn't in use, and spend a very little time tuning it in, you get what is effectively FM radio quality audio.

Most of the time.

If you are driving (which, if you are in a car, you probably are) then you can quite easily move into an area where your previously empty frequency is in use by local radio. At the very best you will get rumble and crackle. At worst your signal will be overridden by a nasty, crackly local radio station (nasty and crackly because your iPod is interfering with it). The TuneFM has four nice buttons for memorising frequencies, so if you travel the same route to work every day you can switch to the correct frequency at the correct moment, but, otherwise, you have to accept that reception will be variable.

If you use the unit without the power supply, using the iPod's own battery to power it, you'll find your signal is not as strong, and your iPod will drain quickly. Why would you use it without the power supply? Well, for example, if you had a TomTom or a mobile phone or something using it. Of course, you can invest in a splitter, but you are filling up your car again with extra cables, which is what this particular gizmo is partly trying avoid.

Also, this unit only really works well if your original music is LOUD. Evanescence, the White Stripes, even Dire Straits and Suzanne Vega are all fine. In fact, any rock, dance or pop song recorded in the last thirty years is going to be fine. Classical music, though, which has a much greater dynamic range than popular music, is prone to interference, which you will hear very strongly in the quiet bits.

Compared to one of those cassette thingies that goes into your cassette player at one end and into your iPod at the other, this is a big advance in quality. When it's not being interfered with, the quality really is the same as FM radio -- except you get to pick the tunes. For most people driving along in their cars, this is really all you need. After all, with road noise, wind noise, and engine noise, you are hardly in a finely tuned listening environment.

However, this is nowhere near as good as CD -- like most other FM radio, it doesn't offer anything above 15khz, thereby smoothing off the sound and losing 'air' and 'crispness'. Likewise, it doesn't have anything like the 96db dynamic range of CD, so it's not a great choice for classical music. Nor is it as good as directly connecting your iPod into your car stereo, if such an option is available. This of course would mean another wire, but it wouldn't require you to plug your iPod into the charger, so you wouldn't be losing anything.

Verdict: there are lots of devices like this on the market, and, now that it's legal in the UK, expect to see more. The limitations of this one are really the limitations of short range FM radio, so don't expect to find another one with better audio quality. There are others out there which have worse audio, though. Otherwise this is a neatly packaged unit which integrates well with the iPod. If you don't have the option of wiring your iPod directly into the car stereo, then this one, or one of its Belkin siblings, will serve you well.

when I recieved this as a gift, I was a bit dubious as I've had similar type of thing which was lousy. but when I plugged and tuned this in I was very impressed by the sound quality and by the fact that I didn't crackle like AM radio- it was much more like listening to a CD. I am not able to change the stereo in my car so this is a godsend. I was given and nice holder for my ipod too, so I couldn't be more pleased.

Having looked at various 'wired in' iPod attachments for our car I found this on Amazon. The reviews convinced me to buy and I have not been at all disappointed. As the reviews said, this is easy to use and takes minutes to set up. The sound quality is good for us - not noticed any difference from the CD player in the car.

I have had no problem using it in the car (so far we seem to have found a frequency not used in the UK but not travelled everywhere yet!). Also great in the home (saves loading up CDs which will probably now gather dust!), and we took it on holiday recently and used with the apartment's hifi. Being able to have our own music wherever we are is great!

I recommend this piece of equipment. It is excellent value, especially against the wired in options.