Logic3 i-Station review

Plugging your iPod into your ears and tuning out the world is fine if you're on your own, but what if you want to entertain your friends and family with some groovy tunes?

Logic3 has the answer: its i-Station turns your iPod into a portable hi-fi, so you can share your music no matter where you are.

The i-Station is a portable speaker system for the iPod. It consists of two 3 Watt speakers and a 6 Watt subwoofer. When it's in use, the sub-woofer folds back to reveal a dock for an iPod. Otherwise it sits flush with the speakers, and a perspex shield snaps in place to protect the speaker cones.

A mains adapter supplies power, and there are connectors for linking the i-Station to your PC using USB or FireWire, so you can charge your iPod and sync it with your PC as it sits in the i-Station's dock. The dock comes with a number of adapters, so you can connect any iPod that has a dock socket. There's also a line-in socket, allowing you to connect any audio source through a headphone jack. You can power the i-Station with four AA batteries, which is particularly useful if you take it on holiday.

The front of the i-Station's glossy white, plastic case has just four buttons: power, volume up, volume down and what Logic3 calls '3D'. The 3D button is supposed to make the speakers sound as if they're further apart than they really are. If anything, we found it impaired sound quality by introducing a little distortion.

Overall, we were pleasantly surprised by the i-Station's sound quality. Its small speakers and plasticky construction made us fear the worst, but rock songs had plenty of oomph, dance beats had satisfying bass and there was plenty of detail in acoustic guitar music. The only problems we encountered happened when we turned the iPod up to its highest volume setting and did the same with the i-Station. This caused serious distortion, making the speakers rattle disconcertingly. We were also a bit concerned that there's no cover for the speaker cones, except for the snap-on perspex cover, which you have to remove when using the unit. We'd prefer to see protective grilles.

The i-Station won't be to everyone's taste. It could be more robust, and sound quality at the highest volume levels is poor. However, if you really want a set of speakers for your iPod, and intend to use them only at moderate volume levels, the i-Station is great, and significantly less expensive than its competitors.