Altec Lansing Orbit MP3

Cool Yule Rating: 4 stars

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Cool Yule Rating: 4 stars

Price: $39.95

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Description: Colleagues who are about to go out on the road often stop by my office and ask me whether I have any portable speaker systems that they can borrow, as they want to listen to their iPods in their hotel rooms without having to wear headphones. Most of the portable speaker systems that you see for iPod or other digital music players barely fit the word "portable", as they are somewhat big and mostly stationary. The Orbit definitely fits the moniker of "portable," as it is extremely small and very easy to throw into a laptop bag for traveling.

The Orbit has been redesigned from its original model, but still boasts 360-degree sound for your iPod or other digital music player. Powered by three AAA batteries, the bottom of the device contains the cord that connects to the media player. An on/off button with LED gives a visual reminder to turn the device off to save battery life. Altec Lansing says that the three batteries will provide up to 24 hours of listening time, which seems pretty short to me, but then again, I've never listened to music for 24 hours straight, so that should last a while.

Sound quality was pretty good, it gets a little distorted if you turn your audio player's volume all the way to the top, but in a regular-sized room it's good enough to allow everyone to hear.

At $39.95, this is a good price, especially for those co-workers who want to use a handy device to play their tunes while they're in the hotel room.

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