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Works great, I hear music in the music I've never heard before. Easy to carry with you camping or just traveling.
We replaced it with new tape and returned it. We accidentally purchased the plug in model instead of the Portable. When it arrived, we cut the tape with a knife and stopped when we realized it was not the Portable Model. They have a large restocking fee which we were not aware of when we purchased it. They did return an additional $20 when I complained but considering the fact that I was purchasing the correct model from them, I didn't appreciate the restocking fee.
This unit was easy to install and easy to use. It sounds great, with especially good bass response for such a small unit. It is perfect for personal listening at reasonable volume levels or providing background music at listenable levels even over party conversation. The remote control is a nice feature that is much easier to use than the iPod interface itself.
The sound is awesome, get the carrying case it is well worth it. won't be disappointed.
Put me in the camp that thinks that Bose is more about marketing than the end product. I decided to give it a go and purchased that as well and would let my girlfriend (whom was the recipient) decide which one she wanted. If you ever need the CD or radio features then I think this makes the Panasonic a much better choice. This would be a great unit for a college student so they could enjoy music in the dorm, and take it outside (with extension cord) to provide music for all to enjoy. When I got it home and tried it out side by side the sound quality wasn't as nice as the iHome. The iHome is a bit bulky and doesn't look as classy.
There wasn't an evaluation model out, but after looking at it I noticed the footprint was much nicer and looked great. CD/AM/FM are great extras. However I thought it was "good enough" because at moderate levels it still sounded very good. The sound quality was better than the Bose, though the footprint was much larger and not as elegant looking. If you are an audiophile then the Panasonic is probably not for you, but I personally feel it would be satisfactory for 90% of the people.Footprint: The Bose and Panasonic are sleek and thin units and are about equally preferable.
One negative is the power adapter brick which is large and would be hard to tuck away to hide somewhere.On the way to checkout I saw the Panasonic SC-HC3. Due to both facts I returned the item. If you are more interested in great sound at high volumes over form and function then get the iHome. After borrowing a friend's iPod to test with it, I was underwhelmed by the sound quality. You will have a harder time finding a nice place put this.Features: The Panasonic wins hands down on this. In addition it has a built in CD player and AM/FM radio. Make sure you save the boxes however.If Bose had included at least an FM tuner, I might give this a unit a "maybe". The smaller and nicer looking footprint was great, and the CD feature and AM/FM radio was the clincher for me (as well as her).
I'm cross posting this review to the 3 products I evaluated.Bose SounddockiHome Bongiovi IP1Panasonic SC-HC3I purchased a Bose Sounddock, but the thing kept rejecting my iPhone. While I personally don't need the CD player I still think it is a shame that the Bose and iHome don't include at least an FM radio. Had the iHome had an FM tuner built in, I would have strongly considered this model instead.Cost: At the time of this writing the iHome is slightly MORE expensive than the Bose, while the Panasonic is about 40% less.I would recommend either the iHome IP1 or Panasonic over Bose. If you don't plan on cranking the volume all the way and want decent quality as well as good aesthetics and a compact footprint then the Panasonic is a better option. One note: This unit is not compatible by default with an iPhone, though it will work with it however you probably need to turn the airplane feature on to get the best sound.Summary:Sound: The iHome was the best sounding unit, marginally better than the Bose. While the sound is good, it isn't awesome. I think most of the Sounddock products sound about the same, though I didn't test the Sounddock 10.After checking out reviews on the iHome IP1, I next went to a warehouse store and gave it a test run. It looks great but is woefully lacking on features.
I also considered where this was going to be used, which would be in a small apartment or bedroom and realized that it would be very rare for her to want to crank this up to 11. The Panasonic was moderately less preferable to both the iHome and Bose, but please take into consideration your listening environment and habits. Also you should strongly consider the lifetime guarantee you can get by purchasing these units at certain stores over the 1 year warranty Bose gives you. Finally compare the warranties to that of the other units (from a warehouse) and I find it makes recommending this unit much harder to do.
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