Friday, May 16, 2008

Altec Lansing T612 Review: Finally, a Dock for the iPhone


Altec Lansing’s latest speaker dock doesn’t look particularly innovative- in fact, it closely resembles the company's two-year-old M602. What makes this set special is that it's the first model to play nice with Apple's iPhone.

Until now, iPhone users have had to put the handset into “Airplane mode” when using a speaker dock, rendering the device’s phone abilities useless. This is because the phone gives off a distracting GSM buzz (caused by the cellular modem’s regularly reaching out to the network), which diminishes the music listening experience. The T612 fixes this problem and is certified by Apple with the "Works with iPhone" logo. (It will also work with a plain old iPod.) You can dial and receive calls when the iPhone is docked and playing music-the music will stop for you call. But you do have to pick the phone up to tak, since there's no speakerphone support here.


The T612’s audio performance is fine at medium-to-low volumes but is hampered by low-end distortional higher levels, so you can forget about using it for your next full-scale dance party. Since there’s no TV-out either, you can’t connect it to your television for video watching. At just $200, though it maybe the perfect small-space speaker solution for iPhone users.

Altec Lansing T612 Review
Price range: $200

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