iLounge

Company: Monster

Website: www.monstercable.com

Models: iCarPlay Wireless Plus for iPod, iCarPlay Wireless Plus for iPod shuffle

Price: $100

Compatible: iPod 3G, 4G, 5G, mini, nano

Monster iCarPlay Wireless 200 with Monster AutoScan

By Jeremy Horwitz

Editor-in-Chief, iLounge
Published: Monday, November 6, 2006
Category: FM Transmitters - Car Only

[Editors' Note: On November 1, 2006, iLounge published The 2007 iPod Buyers' Guide, with more than 30 brand new, capsule-sized product reviews - only for products we considered to be amongst the very best we've seen throughout the year. The short review below is excerpted from the Guide, which you can download here.

We’re legitimately impressed: iCarPlay Wireless 200 has a simplifying technology that can make virtually anyone a satisfied FM transmitter user. Hold the big silver button in the middle of the transmitter and an Autoscan screen will appear on your iPod, while iCarPlay searches every radio station from 88.1FM to 107.9FM for the clearest possible station for broadcasting. Three presets and self-tuning are also available. Other than being unable to auto-tune 87.9FM as part of its standard sweep - a Japanese operation mode enables 76.0 - 90.0 tuning separately - this works really well, leaving you only to deal with the $100 price tag and not-quite Kensington/Belkin static level, which is close to great but not quite, even on directly competing stations. A good option if you find proper tuning a struggle.