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 | Best offer for Philips AZ1330Best Price for Philips AZ1330 is at Bennets Electricals - £69.99
Store: Bennets Electricals - see offers at all stores | SummaryTotal power 2x4W RMS / Motorized CD loader for convenience access / Make album selection from MP3 and WMA music |
| Nearly but not quite there..... | I've been looking for a portable iPod docking CD radio that I can move around the house for some time and now Philips have come up with this. It doesn't meet all my requirements but there is nothing out there that does as far as I know. In particular it lacks DAB which is a shame, but does play CD-R's. One rather silly shortcoming of the design is the iPod dock which is in front of the display so with an iPod in situ you can't see the display. The build quality is quite good and the iPod inserts (8 of them!) fit well but why you should need so many is beyond me. Strikes me as overkill as some of them are very similar. The motorized CD tray is a nice touch.
Sound is average compared to other CD radios I've had and is a little disappointing but OK for a portable device but definitely lo-fi. The bass boost feature (DBB) does improve the sound slightly but doesn't make a significant difference.
FM performance is let down by a tuner that is very slow to search for stations. Its functionality is a little quirky and lacks the usual intuitive control achieved by most units these days. Setting radio presets is a chore.
iPod control is limited to play/pause and next/last track, but that seems to be the norm for iPod speakers
The remote is rather small and fiddly and can't turn the unit on or off which is a significant omission in my view.
However, I'm generally pleased with it if only because it seems to be the only portable `one box' iPod/CD/radio on the market. Sharp do one which is a lot bigger and thus not really portable. So for now, this will do, until Philips or someone else bring out one a notch or new better without the little design faults of the AZ1330, and DAB radio! Nearly but not quite.
| Written on 24 February 2008 |   |
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