Speck Products MobileTune iPod FM Transmitter

Gadgeteer Hands On Review by Julie

July 25, 2006

Have you ever noticed that a lot of FM transmitters on the market these days, don't blend in very well with the interior of most vehicles. Their design tends to be too flashy or wacky for my personal taste. I don't know about you, but I tend to prefer that my vehicle accessories look more like OEM parts than something that came from the bargain bin of AutoZone. That's why I was pretty amazed when I came home the other day to find a package from Speck Products. Inside was the MobileTune FM Transmitter for the Apple iPod.

The first thing that caught my eye was the shiny chrome cap at the end of its light bulb shaped body. No, it's not made of metal, it's plastic. This cap is actually the tuning mechanism and display for this FM transmitter. The outside ring is spring loaded and can pivot left or right to easily adjust the frequency. Each click that you give the ring, will move the transmitter 1 frequency up or down the dial. Tuning is continuous from 88.1 to 107.9Mhz.

Most of the body of this device is encased in Black leather which is stitched on with Black thread. This tight covering can not be removed and truly gives the MobileTune a premium auto accessory look and feel.

It actually blends in great with the leather covered shifter in my Mazda3 5-door.

A 27 inch cable protrudes out the middle of the transmitter. At the other end of this cable is a 30 pin iPod dock connector. To use the transmitter, you plug it into a free 12V power socket in your vehicle, tune your FM radio to a channel that has no station, and then use the ring on the MobileTune to tune to that same frequency.

As soon as you power up your vehicle, the MobileTune's Blue on Black display will glow. I sort of wish the display was Red to match the other LEDs in my car. Oh well... The picture above makes the display look like it is majorly bright. Don't worry, it's not blinding or anything. Also, it's smart enough to turn off when your car is powered off.

After the car radio and MobileTune transmitter have been set to have matching frequencies, you're ready to connect your iPod and start playing your tunes. For this review, I used my iPod nano. Let's start with the good news first... The best features that this FM transmitter has, is its ability to charge your iPod's batteries while you're listening to music. It's also easy to tune. Although I do wish that you could hold the ring in one position to have it continue to cycle up/down the frequency list. As is, you have to turn it, let it spring back to the center, turn it, let it spring back, etc., etc.

The only bad news here is that I've been spoiled by my current method of listening to my iPod through my car stereo. I use an auxilliary input. Once you listen to your iPod connected through the docking connector directly into your car stereo, you'll never want to use an FM transmitter again. That said, if your vehicle's head unit doesn't have an AUX input, the MobileTune will sound pretty nice. During my testing, I did notice some light buzzing sounds during the silent sections between songs. I also noticed that I needed to turn the volume up on the stereo 2-3 notches louder than when I use the AUX input. By the way, adjusting the volume on the iPod itself when it is connected to the MobileTune, will have no effect on the volume levels. All volume adjustments must be done through the car stereo's controls.

Sound quality with the MobileTune is good, but no where near as good as when using an AUX input. FM transmitters on the whole leave music sounding a bit flat. Again, if you've never heard the difference, you're not going to know what you're missing... If you don't mind the sound of FM radio stations through your car stereo, then you will probably find the MobileTune to be just fine for you. This is definitely the best looking FM transmitter that I've had the chance to review, but at $60, I think the sound quality could stand some improvement.