I had done a subtantial survey, analysis of literature on the web and spoken to people who had docking stations for Ipod before finally settling on this model. I strongly feel that all of us will get more out of our Ipods if we make use of them in conjunctionwith a world class Docking station. Else we will end up using Ipods only while travelling - I atleast consume most of my music at home, at a fixed place rather than while on the road.
An Ipod Dock should have 2 Essential features and a couple of desirable ones in my opinion. This may vary across users but these are my requirements.
*Essential*
1) It should charge the Ipod while on power2) It should be able to do the basic functions of Ipod either through the dock or through a remote
*Desirable**1) Portability - It should have a chargeable battery that lets the dock play for atleast a few( 3-5) hours2) FM radio
The bulk of the Docking stations that are available take care of the essential features but only 2 handled 3 or 4 of the requirements . They were the Bose one and Altech lansing In Motion series. Now in the Bose one, there was a portable model which could play upto 3 hours after charging, the sound quality was really top class . However it did not have radio( FM), the model was not readily available in India and it costed about Rs 23000. On the Other hand the Altech Lansing had **all the 4 features, **cost only around 8000 Rs and is available in India.
I have been using it for the last 3 months and have been extremely happy with it. The FM qis a real bonus, the quality of sound is a good as that from a Satellite Radio and the Ipod sound quality is also only marginally less than that of Bose’s.
So, for all those who want to try out a Docking station, please do have this high up on your list of choices!