Better than the movie

Tron! Some of you will stop there and immediately go buy this movie-inspired dock. But the rest might need some convincing. The first page of the product manual reads, “Once in a generation, a movie event comes along and changes the playing field.” Disney’s Tron sequel certainly didn’t live up to that kind of hype, but luckily for music fans (and those of us easily distracted by blinky lights), the Tron dock proves itself a capable little machine. If you’ve always wanted a light disc of your very own, now’s your chance.

The Light Disc itself is sturdy. You won’t be throwing it at anyone, but on the plus side, it stayed put as we docked and undocked our devices. Buttons on the front let you adjust volume, switch tracks, and play or pause. The most prominent button activates a Tron-ish clock and music player when used with the free companion iOS app. Oddly -- and unfortunately -- the alarm and EQ settings mentioned in the manual were nowhere to be found in the app at press time.

Monster’s Tron dock is nerd-fabulous.

The Light Disc is intended as a desktop speaker dock. It’s fine for casual listening while you work, but it’s not going to take the place of a full-sized stereo setup -- or even some similarly sized competitors. At 50 percent volume, the music was comfortable for light background listening as I wrote this review. Cranking it up a few clicks with the included remote turned my desk into a one-man disco, but the bass started to fall off at around 75 percent volume.

Owing to its desk-friendly sonic proportions, we wish the Light Dock included a USB port so we could use it to sync our devices with iTunes. And every time we plug in an iPhone or iPod touch, the dock pops up a notification that it “requires” the app, which we already have. Annoying.

The bottom line. The Light Disc sounds good, but its lack of a USB port and an app that’s mostly flash leaves us wanting a bit more. Kind of like Tron: Legacy.