Kensington Digital FM Transmitter/Auto Charger
www.Kensington.com
Price: $79.95 (Also includes free Silicone Case for your iPod)

Most of us in the technology have at least heard of Kensington for their great computer accessories, but most of the time we would not think of them when thinking about iPod accessories. Well, today I will show you that this has changed, and Kensington is making a true entry into the iPod accessory market.

For our first product from Kensington, we are reviewing the Digital FM Transmitter/Auto Charger. The FM transmitter comes in a small blister pack that shows off the product quite well. It is very professional looking, and I for one would love to pick it up off the shelf at a retail store.

The unit is fairly small and consists of the main plug/tuner and then a cord that comes off that which has the iPod connector on the end. Amazingly, the connector looks identical to the connector on the official iPod sync cable. On the front of the main unit you will find a small blue backlight LCD with 3 buttons on top of it, and a up/down button on the side. The whole unit is white with a small gray patch around the LCD and Kensington logo on the top.

Packaging with Unit Removed

Setup for usage of the FM transmitter is extremely easy, simply plug the unit into your cars Cigarette Lighter  (DC) jack, and then plug the cable into the bottom sync port on your iPod. This will start your iPod charging and turn on the LCD. You then need to select a station to broadcast on, first find an open station on your radio, then use the up/down buttons to select that station on the LCD of the unit (the unit can go to any station between 88.1 and 107.9 FM in increments of .1 MHZ (ex. 88.1, 88.2, 88.3)). You can save up to 3 favorite stations on the unit by pressing and holding one of the buttons above the LCD to save the current station to that button. This is nice if you want to change back and forth between stations for different areas where one station may be busy, and then when you drive a bit further, it is not busy but the one you were using is. The bright blue backlight LCD is easy to read in the day and night and really makes using the unit super easy.

After using the unit for a few weeks in a few different cars, I can conclude that the sound quality is very good. It sounds precise and comes the closest to the sound quality of the C.Crane FM Transmitter (which really has perfect quality) of any other small FM Transmitter that I have seen. One issue that I had with the unit is that the sound was broadcast at a low sound level, so I did have to turn the car radio up quite a bit more than normal to hear the music. But besides that, the FM Transmitters performance was awesome.

Overall I think that the Kensington is a very good FM Transmitter for your iPod. It has good sound quality, charges your iPod at the same time as broadcasting the sound, plus it just looks great with your iPod!

Pros:

• Compact Design
• Good sound quality
• Charges your iPod
• Easy Operation
• Up to 3 Favorite Stations
• 5 Year Warranty

Cons:

• Sound is broadcasted at a low sound level

Thanks to Kensington for the Review Sample!