Griffin iTrip FM radio transmitter for iPod.

What is it for ?

It gets connected to the iPod connector and it transmits the music from the iPod over the FM radio frequency so you can turn on the home or car radio and listen to what is being played on the iPod. This removes any complicated wiring from your ipod to your car stereo.

Description

It gets connected at the bottom of the iPod, it has a display with backlight, one navigation button with 3 directions on the side of the iTrip. You can move the navigation button up and down to change frequency from 87.9 to 107.9 MHz FM. It also has a small USB connector on the bottom so you can charge the iPod if iTrip radio transmitter is connected and using the main iPod connector.
It is recommended that you first find a frequency at the radio, change frequency until you get to a point where there there isn’t much interference from other stations, then set same frequency on the iTrip.

The Griffin iTrip doesn’t need batteries, it gets power from the iPod, when iPod doesn’t send any sound (on pause or stop) the iTrip radio transmitter automatically turns off to save power.

For best Audio Quality

For best audio quality make sure you find the best FM frequency, then make sure iTrip is set to “LX” (stereo), DX is mono; using mono mode quality is worse but signal should be stronger.
Then you might also try changing iPod equalizer settings and disable auto volume function.
iTrip has a thin wire on back, that is the antenna, things touching the antenna might affect audio quality.

The good

• A practical solution to avoid complicated or annoying wiring or devices when connecting with car stereo.
• Backlight is a nice feature.
• Easy to use.
• Stereo On/Off .
• USB connector to charge iPod while iTrip is connected to main iPod connector.

The bad

• Sound quality is not great especially if you do not try many settings to improve it (see above)
• A bit bulky compared to iPod player shape.
• Price ~$50 could be lower

More photos

The shape problem, this one doesn’t look too good:

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 5th, 2007 at 10:06 pm and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.