Reviews
irock!
Beamit 440FM and 450FM
Broadcast tunes from your favorite portable audio device
to your car or home FM radio
The
Problem:
PDAs
and laptops have notoriously tinny little speakers, and most .MP3
players, whether they're solid state or CD-based, have no speakers
at all. You're forced to listen to either horrible, harsh sound,
or you have to plug in some cheap ear buds, which aren't much
better, or real headphones or powered speakers to get decent sound
that won't make you cringe. And when you want to listen to your
own library of tunes or audio books in your car, wearing ear buds
or headphones while driving is not only dangerous; in most places
it is illegal.
If
your car has in-dash stereo with a cassette slot, you can use
a cassette adapter÷ they've been around for years, but they're
less than an ideal solution. If it only has a CD slot, you can't
even use one of those.
The
Solution!
First International Digital, Inc. has sold a device called the
irock! Beamit for a couple of years. Powered by a pair of AAA
batteries, the earlier Beamits worked okay, but they could have
been better.
With
the release of two brand new models, the 440FM and 450FM, the
Beamits just took a quantum leap of better ö these new puppies
solve every problem and answer every complaint people had with
the older model, and do it in a stunningly stylish way.
The
450FM is about the size of a lipstick with a small LCD screen
and a three way rocker switch to turn it on and off, and select
any of 100 FM stations (the entire FM band from 88.1 to 107.9)
to broadcast to. It remembers the frequency it was last set to
between power cycles. Just plug its gold plated 3.5mm jack into
the headphone jack of your device, whatever it is÷iPod, Palm,
PocketPC, laptop, almost any device you can think of with audio
output÷pick a frequency, tune your FM radio or receiver to the
same frequency, and voila ö the audio is broadcast to any FM receiver
/ radio / stereo within a 10-30 foot range. The 450FM uses only
one AAA battery and gets incredibly long life from it, since its
screen's soft alien-green backlight only stays on for a second
after you touch the toggle switch to turn it on or off, or to
change frequencies. The coiled gray cord is its antenna. It's
a beautifully stylish piece of engineering, and puts out a robust
FM signal. Small, elegant and pocketable, it just plain works
the way it should: at home, the office, indoors, outdoors, in
your car, (a 12V cigarette lighter adapter is included so you
don't even have to put in a battery) - anywhere you have any kind
of FM receiver or radio within range.
It's
bigger, cheaper brother, the charcoal gray and black model 440FM
is designed strictly for in-car use. It needs no batteries at
all, but instead plugs directly into your vehicle's 12V outlet.
The swiveling business end has a bigger display screen than the
450FM and, when powered on, glows an eerie pleasant blue all the
time. Since it's pulling power from your car, there's no need
for the light to turn off to save its battery, since it has no
battery. And if your car's lighter socket is live with the engine
off, it'll work while parked too.
Like
the 450FM, a compact coiled cord that terminates in a gold-plated
3.5mm stereo jack plugs into whatever device you want to travel
with and broadcast through your car stereo's FM. Unlike the 450FM's
100 possible frequencies, the 440FM can be tuned to any of twelve
FM stations, which should still be more than enough. You should
be able to find a frequency on your car's FM dial that's unused
by any radio station, and, in my testing in Southern California,
where the FM band is very crowded, I found that either Beamit
could easily work on the same frequency as one already occupied
by a radio station, if that station's signal was weak. In other
words, no matter where you live÷ city, suburbs, or out in the
sticks÷you shouldn't have any problems.
I
used the 450FM with a Tapwave Zodiac 2 and my laptop running WinAmp
to broadcast across the living room to my stereo rig and the sound
was simply excellent. No hiss, no FM drift, just good stereo sound.
Both
Beamits broadcast audio with a range of 50hz to 15khz. Total harmonic
distortion on both is rated below 0.5%. No, this is not ãCD Quality,ä
but that's the limitation of FM radio as regulated and capped
by the FCC, and for all practical purposes, the low end (bass)
and high end (treble) are more than satisfactory. While both new
Beamits should be in consumer electronics stores by the time you
read this, First International Digital sells them at a discount
if you buy direct from their online store. The Beamits are stellar
little widgets that deliver exactly what they promise. Highly
recommended.
öHarv
Laser
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