17 January 2008 11:00 GMT / By Stephen Patrick
External speakers for your MP3 player have been a growth market in recent months, with almost as many sets being launched as there are players on the market.The Genius iTempo 800 speakers offer 20 Watts of power, which is more than enough to blast your MP3 tunes around the average living room.
The look is average for such speakers, being a single unit with stereo speakers built-in and a player cradle on the front.
Designed with the iPod in mind, there is a cradle on the front of the unit that supports all current iPods. With three different cradles supplied supporting everything from a Shuffle to both Nanos to the larger iPod Classic, you’ll find the cradle will also charge your player.
If you don’t own an iPod you can still use the speakers, you’ll just have to use the audio-in mini-jack found on the rear of the unit. This means you can’t show off your player and more importantly, that you can’t charge your player either.
There is a USB connection, so you can hook it up to your PC and update music files without having to take it out of the cradle. Also, if you're iPod supports video, there is even an S-Video support so you can send images to your television.
When it came to sound quality, we were quietly surprised how powerful and impressive the sound was. Even at high volume, we found there was little or no distortion and the sound was warm.
Verdict
At less than £50, the Genius iTempo 800 offer a great deal in the way of compatibility and quality for not a great deal of money.
Score
Review Recap
- Made by
- Genius
- Price as reviewed
- £47
- The good
- Nice design, powerful, good sound quality
- The bad
- Not the most robust of speakers
- Quick verdict
- They don’t offer anything new but we found the sound quality more than acceptable, and as long as you use an iPod you’ll get the most out of them
- Score
-
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