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
Desirable1) 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!