Altec Lansing inMotion iM3 Portable Audio System

Reviews: Multimedia

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Bradford Day
Kurtis
Altec Lansing
Dec. 8, 2004

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Testing, Cont'd...

Features

If you're the on-the-go type of person typically portrayed in the iPod commercials, dancing down the street and seen only as a black silhouette, you will appreciate the handy carry case Altec Lansing includes with the iM3. It is both soft and well padded with a large interior section to store your iM3 unit and a smaller section to drop in your power adapter and cables. There's room for everything! except your iPod. That's right, an iPod probably wouldn't fit in the fully loaded case. But considering the closure mechanism for this case is composed of two magnetic clips, it is probably best to just keep that tiny Apple hard drive far away.

And just to add one more portability feature to the inMotion speaker unit, Altec made the iM3 totally capable of running on 4 AA batteries! a nice feature if you find yourself in the woods and in dire need of a music fix. Personally I don't see the need for battery power as presumably any place you would want to run the iM3 without a power adapter would probably be better suited to headphones anyway...I'm thinking like at the library, on the subway or in the office. But just in case, Altec claims the iM3 will run up to 24 hours on just 4 batteries. I was going to test this claim, but considering that most iPods only last a few hours on one charge it really seamed pointless to try to validate their claims. As long as your iM3 batteries last longer than a single iPod charge everyone is happy. But in the interest of science, I ran my iPod battery dry on the iM3. The iM3 easily kept up on battery power.

One very nice feature of the iM3 portable audio system is the included wireless remote. From across the room you are able to alter volume as well as skip through iPod tracks, pause and power down the unit. Of course the track skip feature doesn't work so well if you're not using an iPod as your audio source... but then again this is pretty much an iPod-specific device. The remote worked reasonably well, but suffered from a bad case of line-of-sight syndrome. If you happen out of the line of sight for the remote receiver located on the front of the Pod cradle, chances are you won't be able to use the remote. And at times it seemed that I had to hold the buttons down for a bit longer than I was expecting. The remote is picky at times. The ability to skip tracks on your iPod from across the room is very handy, but it's too bad you can't cycle through your music folders. Then again, even if you could cycle through your music, how would you be able to see the screen from across the room? Probably not a necessary feature then, is it? Glad we've cleared that up. And should you not want to use your remote, it can be handily stored in the iM3's backside, nicely tucked away, flush with the rest of the unit.

Since these are powered speakers, they do indeed work well with small flash memory MP3 players such as my JetAudio iAudio4. My laptop also connected and sounded just fine. But the overall coolness factor is lost when no iPod is present.

Now, the iM3 doesn't just act as a soundboard for your iPod. It will also act as a recharge cradle and can also be plugged into your firewire connection using the original iPod data cable. A small input on the rear of the device accepts the stock iPod cable with a satisfying snap. So, once you are all set up with your iBook, iPod and iM3 you can download music from iTunes and send it directly to your iPod as it recharges and plays audio over your iM3. Damn, that's a lot if i's! And, as an added bonus for all you Mac-heads out there...your iBook, iPod and iM3 will all match, assuming you bought everything in the pristine white finish that is.

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Page 1: Introduction & First Looks
Page 2: Testing
Page 3: Testing, Cont'd...
Page 4: Conclusion

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4 User Comments

1 - Posted by Kurtis on December 19, 2004 - 2:56 pm

"White plastic is everywhere! Seriously, you can't toss a dead video card out your window anymore without hitting someone with an iPod strapped to his or her hip. Apple's ubiquitous hard-drive-based personal music player is now intricately woven into the fabric of pop culture. And this fact has, of course, spawned a wave of aftermarket add-ons and clip-ons... in oceans of pristine bone-white PVC.

Altec Lansing has not excluded themselves from jumping on the bandwagon with the likes of Belkin and Bose. Should you find yourself in need of a set of external speakers for your precious palm-topped musical gigabytes, take a gander at Altec's inMotion iM3 portable audio system. But is it worthy of wearing the white?"

http://www.thetechlounge.com/reviews/altec_lansing... (http://www.thetechlounge.com/review.php?directory=...)
http://www.thetechlounge.com/review.php?directory=...

2 - Posted by Guest on April 22, 2005 - 9:37 am

I absolutely love!! these speakers. I just can't believe that they can so great when they are so small and compact. I love the way they look, work and sound. Everyone who hears them is impressed and can't believe that they are so small. They are great on the go as they are so compact, light and easy to set up. It is very good to have the choice of battery or power. I have found the volume levels to be very satisfactory considering that if I wanted speakers to fill a huge space I would buy speakers to suit that application. If you are looking for compact, portable yet great sounding speakers then these certainly do the job.

3 - Posted by jamielockhartgiles on April 24, 2005 - 8:23 am

Is this compatible with the 60GB ipod Photo?

thanks!

4 - Posted by Guest on August 20, 2005 - 1:17 am

battery life is relevant. ppl want it to last longer than the ipod battery as it indicates the cost to run the speakers without dc power.

there are lots of situations where this would be relevant. when backpacking you might not want to lug rechargeable batteries and charger and prefer to just use regular batteries. you might be charging your ipod during car travel and be reliant on non-rechargeables for the speakers.

i'd certainly prefer 24 hrs from a set of batteries compared to 6 hrs.

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