Creative Traveldock 900 Speakers


And now for today's tech news. The blogosphere is full of techie stuff and I try to avoid the subject as much as possible, but I haven't seen much on the Traveldock 900 speakers from Creative so I thought I'd do a mini-review.

Let's see, I got mine about 2 weeks ago and they work great. So go ahead and buy 'em.

Oh, wait, I should probably give you a little more information than that (har, har, har). The Traveldock 900's are portable, battery-powered speakers that connect to your Zen Muvo or other MP3 player. I could give you the specs that I found on the web but the last time I did that I ended up publishing some incorrect information. Let me get out my ruler instead and give some approximate dimensions instead. It's around 5.75" long by about 2.5" wide and about 1.5" deep, and weighs about 10 ounces or so. About the size of a large power brick, I'd say, but weighing less.

Whatever the actual dimensions it fits easily into a coat pocket or briefcase and runs on 4 AAA batteries. Creative is claiming 32 hours of battery life but I haven't changed batteries yet so I can't confirm that. Based on my experience I'd say you can count on at least 20 hours of battery life, and probably a lot more. There is also a DC power jack on the back of the unit but no power adaptor is included.

The unit contains a front connector for certain Creative Zen players that have headphone connectors on the bottom of the unit. For other players like my Zen Vision M, Creative also includes a patch cable that will allow you to connect any MP3 player to the speakers using a line-in jack on the back. Either way, you cannot control the player using the Traveldock 900 and there is no remote included. These are simply speakers. They also include a special cable for the IPod Shuffle, a player I don't know anything about, but I'm sure there must be a special reason why the Shuffle needs its own special cable.

So how does it sound? Well, the thing to remember is that these are battery-powered portable speakers that will fit in your pocket. If your expecting room shaking sound to come out of these then you're going to be sorely disappointed. That said, they actually do deliver a very clean, audible sound, noticeably lacking in the low end that a subwoofer would normally provide. Is it enough sound to overcome the rush of the faucet when your running your bathwater? I don't know. I haven't tried it. But it's more than enough sound to fill a quiet room or back patio, and I haven't noticed any distortion when cranked all the way up, although I wouldn't call it a pleasant sound. At a reasonable and listenable volume level, however, these speakers sound good. Much better than I would have expected from such a small unit. There is also a Wide Stereo button on the back if that's to your taste.

And that's about it. I'm not sure what the real need is for portable speakers such as these, but I see all different brands and models of them for sale in the electronics stores. Obviously, somebody wants them. I bought them mainly for watching video on my Vision M, and although they weren't specifically designed for that purpose they work really well (I snapped this little photo to show you my setup. Notice the clean, uncluttered workspace). The little connector in front works perfectly as a little stand to hold the Vision M in place, and the patch cord slips right into the top of the player. As long as I can find a flat place to put it down then I'm all set to go. And, best of all, I don't have to sit there and hold the player while I'm watching the video. Very nice!

I've also used the speakers to listen to music and, in a pinch, they are a good thing to have. But it bears repeating that these are not going to give you the same quality as your home theater or music system. For listening around the house you'd be much better off getting a ten dollar mini-jack to RCA patch cord and hooking your MP3 player directly to the stereo. That's what I do and I won't pretend that these little $80 speakers are going to give you the same experience.

And that's my review. And for more info here's the link.