Logitech UE Air Speaker

The first thing that struck me when I opened the box was that this is a very sleek piece of kit. There are no ugly protruding buttons; everything has been designed to be unnoticable.

The sound quality is really good; even to my tone deaf ears there is a marked difference between this and my previous sound system. The volume also goes up nice and loud without compromising the quality.

An ipod dock can eject from the speaker, so that you can sync them to it. You can even leave them there, but for me this defeats the point as essentially your ipod/iphone/ipad becomes a remote control. Also I found my ipad didn't sit very comfortably and I was always worried that something might snap. I also found it a bit fiddly getting my ipad to dock. In the end what I have ended up doing is connecting to itunes on my PC as my ipad doesn't have much space and my PC has plenty. I think logitech has made a mistake making this only compatible with itunes, however you don't need to own an ipod as all you need is to download itunes for free and then import all of your music.

I have unfortunately had some problems with it. The initial set-up wasn't entirely straight forward. There are a few important steps that are not properly explained in the booklet, which made the set-up more hassle than it needed to be. For example at one point I was asked to open 'preferences', and it took a bit of searching to realise that I needed to go to 'edit' first. Also at one point I was asked to 'find the airplay icon', which I could not as it is a button that only just appears at this stage in the set-up. Unfortunately the button did not actually appear and in the end I had to resort to the internet to work out what was wrong and how to get it working.

My main issue (and the reason for the three stars) is that occasionally the speaker will cut out, which I think is due to interferring signals. This is the sort of issue I have come to expect from cheap wireless speakers, but this is not something that I consider acceptable from the higher end of the market. I don't want to be listening to an album and then for it to stop halfway through a song. This doesn't happen too often, but it does happen and it is very annoying. I usually give up and switch it off.

Overall the quality of the sound is great, but unfortunately it is not always reliable.

Bought for my hubbie for Xmas
Very easy to set up, clear sounds, looks great
Expensive but worth the money

Upon powering up the UE Air for the first time, the power indicator flashes red, indicating it requires setup. Connect your iDevice to the slide-out connector (an iPad 1 docks just fine), download the free app, enter your network password, and after a short while it's all set up. Once this has been done, the device's wireless streaming is rock solid.

For a 2.0 system the UE Air sounds great and goes plenty loud, with the bass and treble controllable from the UE Air app. It would've been nice to have a dedicated remote (or at least an infrared sensor so you could use a Logitech Harmony remote) for when your iDevice is docked and charging, but it's hardly a deal-breaker.

I've read other reviews stating that the construction of the UE Air is cheap and plasticky, but don't believe them: it's a premium product and it shows. The topside/rear is curvy and glossy, and the control buttons are made of metal and feel nice to use. The overall design has come in for some criticism too, but where some people see lack of imagination and oversimplication, others see minimalism and classicism; it just depends upon which side of the fence you fall (the latter side is the right side).

Many people will undoubtedly baulk at the price, but decent wireless music systems don't come cheap. Any Sonos system will set you back a small fortune, so compared to its comtemporaries the UE Air's price isn't so unreasonable. Sure, you can buy a much cheaper speaker dock, but it won't look, sound or work as good as this one, no matter what the adverts claim.

The UE Air is an excellent speaker dock. Logitech/UE have clearly concentrated on minimalist design, ease of use and quality of performance, and in the process come up with a very classy-looking performer. (By the way, UE stands for Ultimate Ears, an earphone brand owned by Logitech.)