8 December 2006 1:15 GMT / By Stuart Miles
The Ofcom law change might be called the iTrip law, however Griffin aren't the only company to make FM transmitters to allow you to share the music on your iPod with your radio, be it in the car or your home.Belkin's offering is the TuneBase FM, a stylish looking device that plugs into your car's cigarette lighter and then allows you to transmit the love to your car stereo. Unlike Griffin, Belkin has opted to use the iPod's screen for the display of the tuner data and there are four memory presets built-in to the docking station if you are having problems trying to lock on to a signal.
As with the RoadTrip from Griffin, the TuneBase acts as an iPod charger at the same time, although the bendy, but study support is considerably better allowing you to get the iPod out of the way of your gear stick.
Once tuned in, all that's left is to tune your FM radio into that frequency. And here lies the rub; you've got to make sure that the signal your trying to transmit to is free.
Try and take over the Radio 2 signal for instance and you're going to struggle with lots of interference.
That said when you do find a spare bit of signal on the band, you're in business and your favourite tunes will be piped out in your car for you to sing along to.
In our tests, while the TuneBase FM looks the business, we struggled to lock on to a signal and compared to the Griffin range the performance was shocking. In the same location and the same parameters we struggled to get a decent enough signal to listen to. When we then took the roads and we eventually had to give up.
Verdict
We had high hopes for the TuneBase mainly because as an overall package it looks really good.
The cradle is very supportive while the memory preset feature allows you to preset certain settings that you know work in different areas.
However as a technology that works we would struggle to recommend this as the signal transmitted wasn't half as good as the Griffin's we have tested.
Looks good, but fails to perform.
Score
Review Recap
- Made by
- Belkin
- Price as reviewed
- £59.99
- The good
- Looks good, memory presets
- The bad
- Struggled to find a signal
- Quick verdict
- As a technology that works we would struggle to recommend this as the signal transmitted wasn't half as good as the Griffin's we have tested
- Score
-
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