Altec Lansing T612

Two factors see the T612 aport from the mass of other iPod speaker systems lining the shelves.
First, it's from a company with a heritage of quality sound rather than a maker of computer accessories.
Second, it's designed with the iPhone in mind, with the speaker cabling and other circuitry shielded againet the iPhone radio waves. This means you can enjoy music on your iPhone without those annoying diddly-diddly-dit pulses of bursting through the speakers when the iPhone and your local cell tower exchange signals.
The dock responds elegantly to an incoming call by fading out the music before pausing the track, with playback resuming from that point when you're finshed the call.
The drawback is that answering the call doesn't automatically put the iPhone into hands-free speakerphone mod, which would surely be the most sensible action. Altec Lansing blames Apple, saying this is an oversight in the design of the iPhone and its docking interface.
Perhaps the same applies to the bundled remote control's inability to do anything more than change the volume, pause or play a track and move between tracks in the currently planing album. It can't take you back into the iPhone's library for browsing your music collection or even to select a new album.
With a decent pair of mid-range speakers and tweeters, the T612 has plenty of clarity and depth, although at the highest volume settings the mid-range gets muddy and the bass distorts.
There is no battery power but the unit is easily moved between rooms and the AC adaptor has a generous 2.8-meter cables. Your iPhone is also recharged as it sits in the dock.
But wrestling it into the device was a finicky process which often threw up an error message on the iPhone's screen as the connection was only partially made. On several occasions, I also accidentally switched the iPhone off by bumping its power button while trying to nudge it into the dock.
But what hurts most about the T612 is the local price, which is twice as much as the $US199 for which it sells in North America. That isn't fair mark-up, it's gouging.

Dell Looks At Digital Music Player, Again

Dell is testing a new digital music player that could go on sale as early as September, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The sub $100 player could be wirelessly linked to Dell PCs and to a Dell music subscription service, according to reports.
Dell plans to leverage technology it bought from software startup Zing Systems in August 2007, to run the player and the service, according to paidcontent.org. Dell first took aim at Apple's iPod in 2003 with the Dell Digital Jukebox (Dell DJ), but started to exit the market three years later. Dell executives could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
At a Bear Stearns conference in 2006, then-CEO Kevin Rollins said it was quite challenging to make money in certain consumer electronics segments such as digital music players.
"There are some competitors who have had great success in certain categories like Apple with the music business which appear to be doing quite well, so we're probably not going to go take a whack at that one, because we have better fish to fry in storage and services and the enterprise," Rollins said at that conference.
The reports come a day after Dell announced it was revamping its desktop line to include a thinner-line of PCs, branded Studio Hybrid, as well as its Inspiron line of desktops and notebooks.