SDI iHome IH30W Boombox price and reviews

The iPod is a great little gadget for listening to music by yourself, but what if you want to share it with friends? What if you want to lounge on your deck or by the pool or on the beach on a sunny afternoon listening to tunes without a headset? There are plenty of options available, from clunky battery powered external speakers with their dangling cords, to iPod boomboxes such as the Altec Lansing inMotion series, or the Memorex iMove.
Personally, I find external speakers more of an annoyance than anything (who wants to lug around three separate components?) So when I set out to buy a speaker system for my iPod I decided that I wanted an iPod boombox. At first, the Altec Lansing series appealed to me for their fabulous sound and deep, rich bass. If gorgeous, room filling sound is what you're after, then stop right here and get yourself one one of those (though they're pricy, at $200.00 to $250.00). But one thing keeps the Altec Lansing models from being the perfect boombox: they lack a radio tuner. Let's face it, sometimes when you're lounging in the sun you want to listen to your personal music collection, but sometimes you want to listen to tuff on the radio, perhaps tune in the news, or a talk radio station.
That leaves a few options: The DLO iBoom, the Memorex iMove, and the SDI iHome2go IH30W. As luck would have it, my local Target store had all three in stock when I went shopping. The iMove was on display so I could play with it, but the iBoom and IH30W were boxed up. Let me begin by saying that I didn't get to play with the iBoom at all, so I can't comment on its relative merits, save to point out that it's pretty goofy looking, though to its credit it does come in black and white. The Memorex is a pretty nice looking unit, but when I played with it in the store, I was really dissappointed in the device's sound quality. I took a chance on the IH30W (even though, at $130.00 it was about $30.00 more expensive than its rivals), knowing that Target had a generous return policy, and took one home with me. As it turns out, I had no need to make use of the return policy, as the device proved to be exactly what I wanted.
Popping your iPod into the IH30W is a lot like having a $50.00 boombox with your whole music collection at your fingertips. The sound isn't great, but it's more than adequate for lounging by the pool. The radio, thanks to its telescoping antenna, gets pretty decent reception and thoughtfully, includes six programmable radio presets (but these are only remembered if you've equipped the IH30W with eight "C" cell batteries. The tuner and display are digital, but you can tune it manually step by step, which is nice if you want to listen to a station with iffy reception (I live in Baltimore, but there are a couple of Washington, DC talk stations that I like to listen to from time to time). On the back is a switch that lets you set the radio reception to "mono" for improved FM reception.
The iPod slips in to the boombox itself, and can be covered and completely sealed within the unit with a sliding, transparent plastic cover. One of my concerns about iPod speaker systems is that often the iPod rests perilously on its dock connector, risking damage to the connector itself if you push it too hard. The IH30W solves this problem nicely by including lots of different adapters and peel off rubber pads to help you secure different models of iPods within hte unit while minimizing flex on the iPod connector itself. The iPod shuffle is also supported, but it sits atop the IH30W like a domino on a separate connector. Control of the iPod through the IHW30 is somewhat rudimentary: you can skip forward or back, and can also raise and lower the volume. But for more sophisticated navigation you need to remove the clear plastic cover and access the iPod's control wheel directly.
I haven't had a chance yet to test battery life, but with 8 "C" cells, I imagine it must last a while. The unit also comes with an AC adapter, and will charge the iPod when running from AC power, though not when running from batteries.
All in all this is a great little unit. I especially like the way the iPod is encapsulated and protected inside the IH30W, unlike with other iPod speakers systems. You could toss this thing along with the iPod, into a gym bag, and not worry a bit about the iPod falling out, or damage to the iPod. You can't say that about too many other iPod speaker systems.
The only negatives to this unit are the fact that the bass isn't really up to par with the Altec Lansing series I mentioned previously, as well as the fact that the remote control is purchased separately (really, these days there's no excuse for that).