Accessories Review: USB Fever’s FM Transmitter for the iPhone and iPod

It’s Wednesday! Time for another installment of Palm Discovery’s wReview Wednesday! Today I’ll be reviewing USB Fever’s FM Transmitter for the iPhone and iPod, an FM transmitter that will allow you to listen and enjoy all the music you have on your iPhone or iPod in your car.

Palm Discovery would like to extend a BIG THANKS to Thomas of USB Fever for providing the product for this review.

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We all love listening to music, but when we’re traveling by car, it can be irritating to try to find a local radio station that will play the music we want to hear, let alone find one. And when we do find one, it won’t be long before we leave the local area and then stuck with nothing on the airwaves yet again. We’ve got a lot of music stored on our iPhone or iPods so why not play what’s on them? Unfortunately, the internal speakers of the iPhone and iPods aren’t very loud and when you’re traveling by car, you may have difficulty listening to what’s on it yourself let alone, share it with others in the car. What to do? Here’s a great solution: USB Fever’s FM Transmitter for the iPhone and iPod.

USB Fever’s FM Transmitter for the iPhone and iPod is a relatively small, lightweight and portable FM transmitter you can hold in your palm and use to connect your iPhone or iPod and enjoy the music through your car’s speakers via the car’s stereo. About the size of a quarter of your iPhone or iPod Touch, it is relatively slim and doesn’t use any batteries but instead is powered by your own device’s battery. This keeps it nice and small and slim and lightweight as well. Simply plug in the FM Transmitter to the bottom of your iPhone or iPod via the connector and the FM transmitter will turn on with a blue display. Then turn your car’s FM stereo to the FM frequency on your FM transmitter and start enjoying your music through your car’s speakers. Now, everyone in your car can enjoy the same music without any hassles or problems.

For those who want to skip over all the detailed review and just want a summary, you can jump to the review summary

USB Fever’s FM Transmitter for the iPhone and iPod is an FM transmitter for your iPhone or iPod that will enable you to enjoy your music in your car. It is slightly bigger than a quarter of your iPhone or iPod Touch and about 2.5 times thicker than the iPhone or iPod Touch. You fit the transmitter via the connector located at the bottom of your iPod or iPod. It requires no batteries or drivers, or cables to use. Simply plug it to your iPhone or iPod and it will turn on and the display will light up, initially with a blue backlight. Then turn on the FM stereo in your car and adjust the FM frequency to the band on your FM transmitter and enjoy the music. Depending on your location, you may need to adjust the FM transmitter’s frequency up or down to find an unused or open frequency. Simply press on the ‘+’ or ‘-’ buttons on the FM transmitter and it will go up or down.

Although the transmitter doesn’t require batteries and will use up the battery from your iPhone or iPod, at the bottom of the FM transmitter is a connector where you can plug in your charging cable to a power source and then be able to charge up your iPhone or iPod. This will ensure that you can continue to enjoy uninterrupted music without worrying about draining your iPhone or iPod’s batteries.

The FM transmitter is very simple to use. Just plug it to your iPhone or iPod and adjust the FM frequency up or down by pressing the ‘+’ or ‘-’ buttons if necessary and adjust the FM frequency of your car stereo to match it and you can then enjoy your music.

Specs and Details

Features:

- High fidelity, Stereo
- Digital PLL
- Full frequency range.
- Memory for last frequency
- LCD Screen with blue backlight
- Powered by iPhone directly, no extra power source needed
- available in the phone mode
- Stop playing when calls in
- with charging socket for iPod / iPhone at the bottom.
- available range: 10 meters approximately.
- Compact
- Lightwight

Specifications:

- Frequency response: 100Hz ~ 15000Hz
- Separation: <=30dB
- Operating Current: 20+/-30dB
- Transmission range: 87.9MHz ~ 107.9MHz (interval 0.1MHz)
- Dimensions: D60xH35x@12.5 (mm)
- Net Weight: 17g

This accessory is compatible with:

- iPhone 3GS
- iPhone 3G
- iPhone 2G
- iPod Touch 1G
- iPod Touch 2G
- iPod Touch 3rd Gen
- iPod Nano 5th Gen
- IPod Nano 4G
- IPod Nano 3G
- iPod Nano 2G
- iPod Mini

Options: Color

- Black (default color to be shipped)
- Silver

Package Contents:

- FM Transmitter for iPhone / iPod x 1

Note:

- The FM Transmitter is not compatible with iPod Classic (6G) & iPod Video (5G)

Click on the thumbnail images for a bigger picture

Slideshow of the above pictures

Product Video

Video Review of USB Fever’s FM Transmitter for iPhone and iPod at YouTube

Here are my observations:

I Liked:

Easy to use

This FM transmitter is very easy to use. Simply plug it to your iPhone or iPod and adjust the FM frequency if necessary on both the transmitter and the car stereo if necessary and enjoy. No extra cables, drivers to install, or even batteries to worry about.

Small, slim, lightweight

The FM transmitter is relatively slim and small in size as it is slightly more than a quarter the size of your iPhone or iPod Touch and fits in the palm of your hand. With no batteries, it is very lightweight.

No batteries required

This FM transmitter doesn’t require any batteries so you won’t need to worry about carrying or buying batteries for it. Simply ensure that your iPhone or iPod has enough batteries. Only one battery to worry about. With no batteries required, this ensures that the FM transmitter is small, slim and lightweight.

Charging port at bottom

Although the FM transmitter uses the battery from your iPhone or iPod, it does come with a charging port at the bottom so that you can charge your iPhone or iPod while using the FM transmitter to ensure uninterrupted and continuous music enjoyment. I really like this feature as it works to ensure that the FM transmitter remains slim, small and lightweight but also address the battery issue.

FM frequency increments by 0.1 instead of 0.2

One of the features I like about this particular FM transmitter is that it will increment by 0.1 instead of the typical 0.2 so that I get that extra 0.1 frequency for better reception. A lot of times, it can make a huge difference when trying to connect to a frequency by 0.1 instead of 0.2.

I Didn’t Like:

Adds bulk and length to iPhone and iPod

At about slightly more than a quarter of the size of your iPhone or iPod Touch, this can really add much more bulk to the entire connected package. Also, the FM transmitter is about 2.5 times the thickness so you can see how much more space it takes up. If space is an issue, you may want to reconsider.

May come loose easily

The connector although it easily connects to the iPhone or iPod, is quite loosely connected. It doesn’t take much, for the FM transmitter to easily loosen itself from the iPhone or iPod. This may be a concern as you don’t want to be distracted while driving to adjust your FM transmitter when it comes loose and you can’t hear the music. You may want to wrap an elastic band around both the FM transmitter and your iPhone or iPod to ensure it doesn’t come out, although it won’t look nice, but it will work.

Can’t use iPhone or iPod case when using FM transmitter

If you use any kind of a case with your iPhone or iPod, you may be required to remove it if you want to use this FM transmitter as it needs to be right on the device. I had to remove my USB Fever Back Cover Case for iPod Touch in order to use it since the transmitter has to be directly fitted in. Any kind of obstruction will not allow the connection to be made. I don’t think even a skin case will work. So if you want to have your iPhone or iPod in its case, you may want to reconsider.

In both this and the previous point, I guess if you can get an iPod extension cable that it may be a possible solution.

Review Summary

USB Fever’s FM Transmitter for iPhone and iPod may be a great solution to the typical problem of not being able to enjoy your music in your car when traveling or even commuting to work or school. It’s a relatively slim, small, and portable FM transmitter that doesn’t require batteries and works right out of the box. Simply plug it to your iPhone or iPod and adjust the FM frequency of both your car radio and your FM transmitter to match each other on an open frequency and start enjoying your music in your car. The FM transmitter will need to be fitted directly onto the bottom of your iPhone or iPod so you won’t be able to have the device in a case and it loosely connects so it may come out. But otherwise, the FM transmitter is a good solution to the typical problem of not being able to listen to your favorite music in the car.

Enjoyed this review? Check out the many other Palm Discovery product reviews of USB Fever products here or other hardware, accessories reviews.

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