As with any travel-specific speaker, the Memorex unit offers a battery charging option, though you'll have to provide your own batteries. A compartment for 4 AA cells is concealed on the underside of the base, while the back of the unit houses the DC power jack. Here, you'll also find an auxiliary line input for connecting the iPod Shuffle or any other MP3 player. Of course, the Travel Speaker also accepts any docking iPod via a cradle built into the front, although Memorex does not provide any snap on adapters, so you may not get the most secure fit. On the plus side, the unit will charge your iPod while it's docked.
In fact, the Memorex Travel Speaker is predictably light on extras of any kind. There are volume buttons as well as basic playback controls (FF/RW and play/pause) on either side of the iPod dock, but no remote comes in the box. As an added bonus, you get a digital clock on the front of the unit, but it doesn't offer an alarm feature. A bit surprising, as it seems like an easy enough addition once the clock is already built in.
Given the price point and size of the Travel Speaker, we weren't expecting much in terms of sound quality. The unit didn't do much to surprise us, but audio doesn't sound terrible. Music comes through sounding quite clear with no distortion or background hiss, and the speaker gets surprisingly loud for its size. However, our praise ends there. As is common in portable speakers, audio sounds quite thin and is completely lacking in bass. Also, the volume levels are not very incrementally defined. That is, there are only eight levels to choose from, one of them being mute, and the two up from there are hardly audible. This was more of an annoyance than the mediocre overall sound quality.
What You'll Pay
- Set Price Alert
