This is an As new unit - Marked as second hand as the packaging has been opened and resealed for quality test. The unit is however in prefect condition.
If there is any as-yet-untapped type of audio accessory that could help Apple's iPhone become a bigger player in the business world, it would be a speakerphone. While the iPhone already has limited integrated speakerphone capabilities, it's less than ideal in input and output volume, and can benefit from a better microphone and speaker combination for users who like to make calls from their desks. For these reasons and others, iHome's new iP47 ($200) is an attractive solution: it combines an iPhone dock with a speakerphone and desktop-ready AM/FM clock radio.
The iP47 is much closer to a true iPhone speaker system. While preserving the same general shape and features as iHC5, iHome has overhauled the design from the outside in, replacing its matte silver paneling, standalone dock, and Bluetooth 1.2 support with iPhone-ready components. The newly all black system has internal iPhone interference shielding, a top-mounted dock, and Bluetooth 2.0 support to let you take calls using the iPhone’s phone functionality. While it preserves the stereo Bluetooth audio streaming capabilities of iHC5, iP47 still can’t play music wirelessly from a connected iPhone—Apple’s limitation, not iHome’s—so for iPhone users, the Bluetooth feature is solely for making and receiving calls.
Of course, you can still hear an iPhone’s music by plugging it into the dock, switching the system to “iPod” mode, and pressing play; an iPod can be docked there, as well. Two active speaker drivers and two passive ones do a fine if not especially detailed job of performing iPod or iPhone audio, delivering sound that is warm, though on the flat side for a system of iP47’s size and price, plus not user-adjustable with either 3-D spatialization or unit-integrated equalizers. iHome’s recent iPod and iPhone clock radios offer greater user control of the sound signature, as well as SRS WOW or other faux 3-D audio effects.
Controlling iP47 is achieved through a surprising variety of buttons. Rather than dials, the system uses left-mounted track or radio setting buttons and right-mounted volume and call starting/ending buttons, plus a set of 12 preset, alarm, power, mode, and dimmer buttons situated above its large integrated digital clock. None of this is a surprise, but pressing an eject button under the clock reveals a complete dialing panel for the phone, which is mimicked along with traditional iPod controls, sans menu navigation buttons, on the Infrared remote control. Consequently, you can dial telephone numbers directly from the iP47, its remote, or the iPhone, but if you want to navigate your contacts, you’ll need to use the iPhone’s touchscreen. Frankly, we were just pleased that the remote and iP47 could properly dial for the iPhone, a feature we hadn’t yet seen in any iPhone Bluetooth accessory, though the system could lose the slide-out dialing pad without any complaint from us. The system also continues to have rear-mounted clock setting buttons, as well as a bottom battery compartment to save settings.
* Shipping include at R105 for econo delivery and R250 for next day.
*Although item is listed as secondhand the unit is as new with some packaging damage which does not effect the unit at all.
