A powerful new iPhone Speaker by Genius
With this evaluation, we welcome the newest member of our ABT staff, Mario Vasquez, who will be heading up our “Mobile corner” as ABT Editor. Mario (aka ZeroEnigma) will help ABT with mobile platforms. This is the next of many of his upcoming evaluations, articles and blogs.
We also welcome your comments on these blogs and articles and all of our staff are ready to serve you. Also, please remember that each editor speaks his own mind and is responsible for what they write. There is no ABT site “point of view”.
Mark Poppin,
Senior ABT editor
The SP-i500
All of us love listening to the latest podcast or music where there are sometimes many gigabytes in our pockets. We usually come home and have things to do and we want quick access to them. We want something convenient, easy, and loud enough to play audio throughout our homes. The Concise iPhone Speaker by Genius is a perfect match. You can experience great sound, physical controls, and even alarm clock functions with a dedicated snooze button, and it doesn’t break the bank beginning at USD $55.
Genius’ new line of Sleek speaker docks offer high-quality sound in a small lightweight package. We were expecting so much less “oomph” than it actually produced. It is surprising for such a small speaker. Inside the SP-i500 is a high quality 1.5″ driver with a total output of two watts.
The speaker is loud and the sound has great clarity. This is perfect for any type of room; all you need is an outlet as the speaker itself takes up little space. The SP-i500 is a nice glossy black – that unfortunately attracts fingerprints. The dedicated snooze button makes this device perfect for its alarm function. Kindly included is the feature with the included app is to wake you up to any audio in your library.
Specifications
What’s included in the packaging is pictured below, minus the manual. Inside the SP-i500 box is its respective power cord and 3 “cradles” for different Apple products. The cradles are labeled to fit iPod Classic, iPhone 3/3Gs, and the iPhone 4/iPod Touch. These cradles fit over the docking portion of the speaker, and once in place, they are meant to stay there. For this editor, these are throw away items as I have multiple devices and the different sizes completely nullify a need for these cradles.
What’s in the box
Why are the the cradles included? The cradles fit into the docking portion of the SP-i500 and are meant to hold a product securely. The problem? They are very hard to take out; we even had to insert very thin object in order to pry out a cradle. For a single product this isn’t an issue. However, for multiple Apple products, such as an iPod Classic and an iPod touch which are very different sizes –the cradles will have to be switched in and out and it becomes a hassle.
The cradles make your iPhone or other product fit nicely but since the cradles are difficult to remove, they lose practically with multiple devices. We hope in the next revision that Genius will design an easier way to remove these cradles. The SP-i500 is high in quality and a small notch would allow easy removal of the cradles and it would solve the problem instantly.
Surprise Solution
Genius included a convenient auxiliary input on the back of the SP-i500 which is a great solution to the multiple device dilemma. With a simple audio cable, you can attach any outputting device to the SP-i500. A friend of mine who has very weak laptop speakers found this is a great backup speaker system. You won’t get extreme clarity and quality such as those offered by expensive alternatives, but this dock packs a high-qaulity loud speaker for its size.
From a hardware point-of-view, the SP-i500 has high quality audio output and looks very sleek with its glossy black finish. The device has a small form-factor and doesn’t take up too much space. Although it connects to a wall outlet, it would have been a plus if it had some sort of battery system for portability and perhaps a remote. There’s no ‘next song’ button and it requires manually using the device while docked.
The SP-i500 sounds surprisingly good and crisp with all tested devices. The speaker did not have very much bass which is not a problem for those who don’t need it, sbut hip-hop lovers might not appreciate tits lack. Loudness is not a problem, but there seems to some issue of ones ability to raise the volume to the maximum.
At certain levels, it seems to be very loud and clear and that should simply be at max volume. However, you can raise it even higher and this makes the sound become distorted. The speakers lose quality quickly at the highest levels. We find ourselves keeping the SP-i500 at lower levels because it sounds great without raising its volume to the maximum.
On the device there are volume controls, a center button for play/pause, and power functions. We wish there was controls for changing songs, or at the least, accessing voice control/Siri. Double-clicking the center button does not shuffle songs as many other docks do. Since you have to manually switch to the next song, a remote control would be convenient. But at the price point, these are minor gripes.
The App that Tried
Now for the iOS portion of this review. Your Apple device can function as an alarm clock with this device using the native alarm clock function or with the Genius app, but does it work?
App Download page
This application is free and works independently or in conjunction with the SP-i500. Once you plug an IOS device in for the first time it instantly informs you that you’re missing the app and prompts you to visit an App Store link. Unfortunately, if you don’t like the app and want to uninstall it, you will get prompted every time – it doesn’t remember if you say, no. This is very unfortunate if you don’t want the application.
The application” UI is very nicely designed but comes with no instructions. It takes some exploring but once you understand how to navigate the application, it’s simple to use. Upon opening the app, you are presented with a choice of two clock designs and they are accessed by swiping the screen left or right:
You can choose between three different animated characters. One for timer purposes, and the other two for alarm clock functions. Genius did a good job here with the characters as they all have unique personalities, voices, and sound effects. Each has 2 settable alarms/timers. The sounds they play when the time is reached can be a recording you made, the preset sound effects/voices, or different song(s) directly from your library.
This is good and works great as long you keep the app open. We set the alarm for 1 minute, closed the app and continued with browsing and using other apps – one minute passed and no alarm. We opened the app to see if there were any errors in the alarm settings and the alarm went off immediately upon opening the app. If you forget to open the app before going to sleep, you will miss the alarm. This isn’t always the case as it worked sometimes, and other times it doesn’t. It may be something conflicting with backgrounding in iOS and how the application is handling it. This is a big negative! While the App looks good, it just isn’t reliable enough for me to pass on the native alarm of iOS.
The app needs some minor reworking, but the hardware is excellent and well worth a try. The SP-i500 is at a price of 55 dollars, which is average for these types of docks. The design is a nice-looking black and it doesn’t take up a lot of space. There are far more expensive docks, but the SP-i500 is loud and sounds just as great, for Genius to receive the ABT Great Value Award for creating a high quality iPhone dock.
Pros:
-Very clear, loud, and quality sound
-Line out for other type of devices
-Great sleek design with lightweight body
Cons:
-App is unreliable and prompts every time to be installed
-It would be nice to have the ability to use batteries/remote
-Loud enough to be LOUD but at full blast the sound gets distorted.
Score:
3.5 out of 5
–Mario Vasquez, ABT Contributing Editor
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