Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2009/04/17/review_ipod_dock_altec_lansing_inmotion_imt702/

Altec Lansing inMotion Max iPhone speaker

Portability and power?

By Alun Taylor

Posted in Personal Tech, 17th April 2009 11:02 GMT

Review The world is not exactly short of portable iPod speaker systems, ranging from the merely adequate - such as Logitech's Pure-Fi Anywhere - to the rather good - such as Intempo's InSession. Generally, they sell for about £100, are about the size of a large house brick and produce a sound that while fine for the odd hour or two in a hotel room when you're on the road, isn't really what you'd choose for prolonged, serious - or loud - listening.

Altec Lansing InMotion IMT702

Altec Lansing's inMotion Max: battery powered

Altec Lansing reckon it has spotted a gap in the market for device that while fully portable - and battery powered - is also large enough to hold its own in the sound quality stakes alongside larger, fixed-location systems.

To be honest, the iMT702 inMotion Max's claims to portability are more a product of design than scale. At 310 x 193 x 52mm and weighing in at just under 1.3kg, it's not exactly what you'd call small or light. However, if you push in the spring-loaded front dock, fold away the stand and clip the remote control into its recessed bay at the back, the whole rig should fit into a large suitcase without too many dramas.

Altec has been getting a bit brutalist with its design language of late and the iMT702 is no exception. The exposed bolts on each side are going a bit far, if you ask us, but it's still a rather smart and more importantly very well made device, especially the perforated metal speaker grille, which we suspect will take some serious punishment before it shows any signs of damage. More to the point, it keeps the speakers safe when the unit is packed away for transit.

Altec Lansing InMotion IMT702

Slide in the dock to make it easier to carry

The iMT702 comes with a very nicely made and easy to use – if, at 30 x 100 x 6mm, rather small - remote control that lets you turn the unit on and off, skip tracks, adjust the volume, fire up the "Expanded Sound Stage" – more on this in a moment - and change the input source. It also allows you to select the four pre-sets you can allocate on the built-in RDS FM radio. Rather than a telescopic radio antenna, Altec supplies a flexible aerial that plugs into the rear of the unit alongside a 3.5mm auxiliary jack.

All the remote control functions with the exception of the radio pre-sets are duplicated on the unit itself in the form of a strip of backlit touch-sensitive buttons along the top. It's a nice looking design but the buttons are too sensitive, resulting in a fair bit of unintended activation should you move the device while it's switched on.

Altec Lansing InMotion IMT702

The remote's small but very usable

A small yet clear 40mm amber LED screen displays the RDS radio information or the artist and title of the track being played by your iPod or iPhone.

Altec Lansing InMotion IMT702

Most of the controls are replicated on the main unit

The iMT702 is fully iPhone compliant so when your phone rings the music pauses and your ring tone plays through the speakers, and all without any interference from the cellular radio. All well and good, but we think Altec missed a trick by not fitting a microphone and a call switch to make the iMT702 a fully fledged speakerphone. The unit will also spring to life of a morning at the command of your iPod or iPhone's alarm.

Altec Lansing InMotion IMT702

The iMT702 fully supports the iPhone too

Though the inMotion has four 2in speakers only two of them are active and together they produce 16W of power. Granted, that's not a huge amount but the unit still proved capable of generating a reasonably loud noise that was well balanced, clear, crisp and nicely detailed. We also found the bass to surprisingly firm given the size of the speakers.

The iMT702 comes with something Altec calls Expanded Sound Stage (ESS), which artificially enhances the sense of stereo separation. This works rather well and manages to open up the soundscape without making a hopeless pig's ear of things. We quickly developed the habit of leaving ESS enabled.

Altec Lansing InMotion IMT702

The sound can get frazzled when maxed out

Play some serious rock on the iMT702 and things do get just a bit frazzled and messy towards the top end of the volume scale. Shostakovich's seventh threw down a gauntlet the speakers couldn't really pick up, either, though once we dialled the volume down to around 80 per cent things improved dramatically. To be honest, any maximum-volume failings are really no more than you should realistically expect from a device of this type and size, and it shouldn't be forgotten that the iMT702 is capable of delivering significantly more volume than many of its portable rivals.

Altec claims the iMT702's rechargeable battery is good for 3.5 hours' playback, a number we found to be just about bang on, even when the unit was being used at a high volume. While 3.5 hours is not really a long time, Altec was probably thinking about users whipping it outside for use on the patio during lunch rather than the sort of thing you'd take on a camping holiday.

You can pick the iMT702 up for around £150 which is between £50 and £70 more than many of its more mass-market competition but none of them can really hold a candle to the Altec in terms of sound quality or volume. Though we have yet to test it, we will be most surprised if Bose's SoundDock Mobile doesn't give the iMT702 more than a run for its money in the sound stakes, but that will set you back the thick end of £300. At the end of the day, we'd say Altec has got the price/performance balance just about right.

Verdict

There's not much wrong with the iMT702 inMotion Max. The clever packaging makes it easily portable and the built-in battery frees it up from dependence on mains power. The sound quality is good for a product which sits in a category that's really more focused on convenience than absolute audio competence. It's just a shame that Altec didn't think of making it double up as a speakerphone. ®

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