You’ll never remember the name at the store, but it’s the one with two docks.
Those wacky kids in iLuv’s marketing department have come up with yet another inscrutable product name. Thankfully, they’re better at dreaming up products than they are at naming them. The iMM173 is a dual-dock iPod alarm clock, perfect for people with more than one Apple media device around the house. Aside from your basic charging and clock functions, the iMM173 features several niceties like a remote control and alarms that gently wake you from sleep—as opposed to blasting you awake.
As an alarm clock, the iMM173 does all the things you’d expect. There are dual alarms, perfect for couples—or people who’s wake schedule needs a little, um, reinforcement. You can even wake up to an irritating electronic beep, if that’s what it takes to get you out of bed. Or, choose from an FM radio station—no AM here, though—or something from either of two docked iPods or an iPhone. But be warned: The iPods aren’t given any protection from hands trying to mash the Snooze button come morning.
Not being sleep-like-we’re-dead types, we appreciated that the alarms gradually increased in volume, rather than immediately coming on at full volume. And speaking of volume, the iMM173 features a 40-step volume control. The top end gets plenty loud for listening in a small room. Given the size of the unit, we were happily surprised at its ability to play loudly without too much distortion. Audiophile gear it’s not, but for general listening, it’s fine.
iLuv has included a small remote, although in an effort to make sure the remote does nearly everything the main controls can do, there are just too many buttons crammed in a small space—and the most important ones are way too small. The Play/Pause and volume buttons are the most important controls for the unit, but these buttons are not only small, they’re also not in the spot your thumb naturally falls. To its credit, iLuv included controls for navigating iPod menus and featured them prominently on the remote. But frankly, when we’re standing close enough to the unit to actually read the iPod screen, we could just as easily navigate via the iPod itself. The remote is highly functional, but on a unit of this size, we suspect it’ll spend more time in the clever magnetic storage niche on the back of the iMM137. The manual is comprehensive—although the English translation is a bit spotty at points. Thankfully, the clock, radio, and alarm functions are easy enough to figure out without bothering with printed instructions.
We wish the iMM173 could support more than one iPhone, but a solid feature set and simple controls make it useful in a variety of settings.
Two charging docks. Dual alarms. Clever remote storage. Goes to 11 (40, really).
No AM radio. Only right dock is iPhone-compatible. iPods not protected from early-morning button mashing.