Brussels, Robin Bollen, March 13 2010.

SHAPE Services has released another great idea. They must have been thinking, Apple is selling around 9 million iPhones per quarter now, that makes a lot of headsets. All these people use already some kind of communication tool on their Personal Computers at home, like Skype, so why not link the 2 together?

With Headset you are not wired to your PC anymore and you can enjoy the freedom of walking around the house when talking.

The app works with the following programs: MSN/Windows Live, Yahoo, Google Talk, AOL IM, ICQ, YouTube, Skype, MagicJack or any other VOIP program. The iPhone application works together with a Windows application called Mobiola, which can be downloaded for free.

Softs

Still interested? Then let’s start the download and installation and I will walk you through the application.

Download first Headset here. Now download Mobiola here.

The first thing I noticed when installing Mobiola is that it also installs Apple’s Bonjour service, which makes it possible to discover other devices in the local network without configuration. Once the installer is finshed and you fire up the program, the Windows firewall asks you to allow access for this program, just click yes.

Get connected

What now? You stare at a program that has the shape of an iPhone app with the message “Disconnected”. Ah lets open Headset on the iPhone of course! The app tells me “No Wifi network found”. Of course I deactivated wifi to preserve battery life. Let’s enable Wifi and start again. Now the app says “Connecting…” and I am waiting… Let’s press the yellow configuration wheel icon behind the “connecting message”, okay here I can see my Computer Name, once selected Mobiola asks me to allow this connection, where I select “Always”.

Okay so far so good, now I can see the gray bars around the headset light up when I speak. Now I start Skype to make my first phonecall with Headset. Upon launching Skype I hear the startup sound coming through the speakers of the Laptop and NOT the iPhone headset.

Read documentation

Time to read some help documentation. Let’s press the i symbol on the iPhone app, the screen turns around and shows FAQ amongst others. When selecting FAQ it starts mobile safari with an empty screen. Not good. Let’s look online for help… After a minute I found this usefull help page. It turn out that Mobiola installs it’s own sound driver (I remember now seeing this messaging while installing). The only thing I need to do now is set these drivers as the default for both Speakers AND Microphone. See screenshots.

Mobiola sound driver

Now the systems sounds come through my iPhone headset, cool! I press again the test call in Skype and notice that the sound still comes out of the PC speakers even I just changed the default driver to Mobiola??? Let’s read again for more help. Okay I need to select the audio driver also in Skype of course… Let’s change that in Tools > Options > General > Audio Settings. Voila this is better, now it works perfectly. Great, I can finally start using Skype again, I lost interest just because my voice quality was not good on the laptop without using a real headset.

Okay this works good, but what about downloading Skype for the iPhone, gives me the same functionality, not? Not, with Mobiola/Headset you can also record your conversations, not needed every day I agree, but can be functional for a lot of occasions.

Quick start

To sum things up to get you started quickly;

1. Download the 2 apps
2. Install Mobiola and launch it
3. Press the yellow configure wheel on the iPhone (have Wifi enabled on the iPhone) and select your PC
4. Start your favorite VOIP tool and change the audio driver in the tool to Mobiola
5. Rock and Roll

The plot

What else can I say about Headset? It is also great to use it as external speakers, let’s say you are playing music on your PC and want to stream it to you iPhone this way. Headset also works on the iPod Touch 2nd generation but you need to buy a headset with microphone of course.

A great new tool from SHAPE services that works!

Summary:
Features - 4.0
Appearance - 5.0
Usability - 4.0
Value - 5.0

Overall: 4.5 stars our of 5

The application was made available to iPhoneTunes for review purposes.

It seems unlikely that the word crisis would disappear from our life in the near future. Controlling our personal financial status has been always important but, these days, it seems even more important. There are many applications for financial management and banking supervision for the iPhone, hard to choose between a range this wide. Today we will analyze SplashMoney from SplashData. The version I’ve tested is 4.7.2, the update is made in December last year.

Let me begin by mentioning the fact that when you run SplashMoney for the first time, a screen appears with the option to read a quick guide. I think that many applications should take note of this detail; it is always useful to have a little help, when you use something for the first time.

Appearance: 3

Graphic design is simple but more than acceptable, it is not visually stunning, positively or negatively speaking. The concept is simple: a home screen with a pair of buttons on the top, a row of buttons represented by simple icons on the bottom and finally, occupying the center of the screen, the accounts. The accounts are represented by colorful icons.

The app also generates graphical reports using a 2D pie chart.

Features: 4

Occupying the central part of the screen, you can see the different types of accounts and products that you can manage: checking, savings, credit card, cash, asset, liability, money market and line of credit. We can add new accounts by clicking the “Edit” button at the top left. The fields to fill are: name, online banking, account number, bank, transaction, balance, currency and icon. Online banking is available only in the U.S.A., you can check the list of partner banks in http://www.splashdata.com/splashmoney/banks.htm

Data entry is simple, you just have to select an account, click the “+” button in the lower left corner and fill in the fields. You have a wide variety of choices to fit the vast majority of situations that arise us: paying bills, ATMs, deposits, payments, cash, etc., choose the category (car, gas, electricity, payroll, leisure , etc.), personal spending, businesses, etc., choosing a state of motion (balance reconciled, cleared, etc.), you can add comments, send e-mail template, split payments or receipts, purge accounts. What’s more, you can also add some more data field.

Some data will be stored in the application and these can be used in future movements, speeding up the process.

Other tools that we have by pressing the “Tools” button from the main screen are:

- Secure password protection using Blowfish encryption
- Scheduled transactions with reminders and Customizable transaction types
- Edit lists of data (payees, categories, currency, etc).
- Sync with SplashMoney Desktop computer software.
- User Guide.

As mentioned in the previous section, you can generate a pie chart (revenue or expense) to view your movements. We choose the period (monthly, quarterly, yearly, etc.), the account, and mark the start and end dates, also the category.

There is also an option of budget planning. It allows you to determine the expenditure forecast and income have in each category. Then you check if you succeed, if you have fallen short or if you spent more.

Usability: 4

SplashMoney is an easy to use app and its simple interface doesn’t lead to confusion. As the data of the main financial flows are stored in the database, entering information will be fast.

I have come across an annoying bug, the application closes occasionally when entering data. I find that it happens more often when not complied with the order of data fields. From what I’ve seen in web forums of SplashData is a problem that the application has since its first version, but have been improving.

Another very common bug seen in the forums is the synchronization problems. I couldn’t check it because I haven’t used SplashMoney Desktop.

Value: 3.5

SplashMoney is sold in the App Store at a price of $4.99. It is more expensive than other applications of its class (as seen in the App Store, most abundant prices for similar applications is $3.99 or even less) but it is also one of the applications with more functions available. I’ve lowered the score a bit because of the bug I discussed earlier. I suppose in future updates developers will find solutions.

Conclusion

SplahMoney incorporates cool features like synchronization with the PC and the ability to operate online banking (only in the U.S.). Moreover, the range of settings and customization is wide. The simplicity of management and administration is a plus. By contrast, there still remains a problem in closing the application when data is entered. Checking the pros and cons, SplashMoney has more pros, as you can see in the final rating.

TOTAL: 3.625 out of 5.

DANIEL FERNÁNDEZ

NOTE: SplashData provided a licensed copy of SplashMoney for this review.

New York, Andy Prior, Feb 06 2010.

You ever get lost when going from point A to point B? Ever have that back seat driver telling you, you missed the turn they failed to tell you about, where there wasn’t anything you can do about? Ever think your always late for an event because your directions were just a little off? If any of these questions have you saying “Yes” in your head then this review of NDrive is for you. So buckle up and let’s take it out for a spin.

Appearance - 4
There’s a distinctly European feeling to this application (and that’s meant in a very complementary way).  For instance the icons and images used in my VW are very different that those in my Chevy pickup.  Considering NDrives European origin, this visual uniqueness isn’t overly surprising.  Actually it’s esthetically refreshing from the same old icons.  The images clearly illustrate the intended functions which is a big plus at highway speeds.

NDrive understands that the screen is small and fingers, while driving, are big.  So - they try very gallantly to keep buttons that are on lots of screens (like back and map) in the same location, they also try to make the main screen icons big, obvious and fully press-able in blocks.  To get from screen to screen within a category there is an arrow on the side of the screen that you can “try” to tap or you can just use the flick gesture to get you there.  The keyboard keys are large and easy to hit while on the highway but not really user friendly (see usability).  Really nothing revolutionary here in the navigation or appearance but everything is pretty easy to grasp and works well.

Features - 4
One cool feature within NDrive that has potential but isn’t there yet (and not to the fault of the publisher) is the community portion. The idea here is users of NDrive can generate unique POI’s that you can upload for others to enjoy while downloading theirs download to your iPhone.  It’s a really great concept that - in theory - should always keep you in the loop on finding the latest and greatest place to go for food, fun, etc. The problem is - the community only has a handful of contributions right now. This function could make this app a breakout in the GPS category - and it would really great to see them forge a partnership with someone who leads in that space, like Yelp or Gowalla. As it stands now - great feature - not so great content.

There’s also a lot of additional configuration options under the hood - things like a night mode for the map that changes automatically at dawn and dusk, options for routing trips, detours, and partial trip detours to name just a few. All high-end GPS options that the default Google maps app doesn’t even consider - and that are very nice to have when traveling in a foreign place.

Usability - 3
Why do the people who code the user interface think that us end-users don’t know what a QWERTY keyboard looks like or how to use one in GPS apps? This is a massive annoyance in almost all GPS software. It’s horrid to try and quickly type in a POI, address, business name, ANYTHING when what should be a keyboard becomes an alphabet ABC chart.  What’s worse is this is on an iPhone, a device that executes the flat keyboard really well.  NDrives attempt to reinvent the data entry wheel was not viewed favorably.

Another item that bugs me is the pinching and squeezing gestures leave something to be desired. It’s not seamless as the app seems to have some trouble keeping up on my 3Gs and sometimes if a finger taps the screen you end up leaving an annoying little blinking red dot that identifies the tap point. Terrific if you want to set a POI - highly annoying if it was just a mistap.

In the good news category - from the map screen you can easily access the turn by turn directions, setting, main menu and even have the voice repeat the last instruction with a single tap.  Ohh - one more thing that almost gets forgotten in GPS reviews anymore… it was pretty darn accurate - getting confused for a few moments only when exiting a freeway off ramp.  That’s refreshing!

Value - 4
With so many other apps pushing the $60-$90 range for GPS functionality, NDrive comes in at a low cost of $45.  If you are looking for a powerful stand alone GPS app this is a really cheap, full featured contender. But the flat cost is only part of the value equation, for some the European flavor to the icons and screens may be a deterrent. Selecting your “favourite” map appearance or managing your “favourites” might not be acceptable to some. That’s a personal preference that does range from one individual to another.

Conclusion / Overall – 3.75
This app really pulled me in two directions in this review - there were things I really liked and there were things I really didn’t like. But as the final score reflected, I think there’s hope for this app.  It may not be the perfect GPS interface and there may be some stumbling blocks on the road to perfection - but the framework is there. The app does take advantage of the iPhone’s uniqueness and capitalizes on gestures and screen orientation - not perfectly - but that’s better than ignoring the virtues of the device.

I guess as a testimonial to NDrive, although it’s not my primary app for mapping out a trip (still the default maps app), it still resides on my phone for those times the default app can’t cut it or when I’m going somewhere new and I want a co-pilot telling me where I am and where I need to turn… without the backseat driving!













Brussels, Robin Bollen, Jan 27 2010.

Business Card Reader is the third app we reviewed from Shape Services and this month. After Charlie being very enthusiastic about IM+, now it is my turn to see if Business Card Reader is from the same quality.

I have a pile of business cards on my desk, and I never have them with me when I really need them. I hate walking around with thousands of things, and it’s one of the main reasons I have the iPhone. I was curious to see if BC Reader is the solution for this problem.

Features – 5.0 With BC Reader you can photograph your Business Cards and the application uses OCR technology, which can electronically translate handwritten or typewritten text into editable text. Note that this application can only recognize typewritten text; anyway that is what all business card are made of (I tried this just for fun).

After the OCR scan is done, you can correct the info where wrong. Important is that you have enough light when you scan the cards. If you do, the positive scan result is amazing. Some of the cards I didn’t have to edit and many had only very minor adjustments needed. In the cases where all looked wrong I just retook the photo with a good result.

One of the cool features is that you can merge the scanned info with current contacts, which helped me a lot because I had some of these people already in my contacts, but not with all the info like the address for example. There is another option to scan business cards that you already have photographed with your iPhone (probably not many people have done this already).

And finally the Card Holder function, where you can view the photographed cards and the electronic info, so you can dial or email this person from there.

The following languages are recognized in the version; English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. More languages will be supported in future versions.

Appearance - 5.0
 BC Reader is designed very appealing. It looks like a real world leather cardholder, to bridge the digital / analog gap. When the OCR starts scanning, you see a nice scan animation that look futuristic. Also “the about” section which contains FAQ, Support and Tell a friend, is nice designed and animated. These features open their own browser, so you aren’t kicked out the app to go online.

Usability - 5.0 The app is simple and easy to use and performs all its functions like you would expect. Just make sure you have enough light when scanning.

Value - 3.5 
The app costs $5.99 and is not expensive for it’s functionality and usefulness if you have a lot of business cards, if you just have a few cards, it is a bit too pricey.

Overall 
BC Reader is a nice designed and useful little application that adds value to the iPhone as a multi-purpose device.

BC Reader changes the way business cards will be designed in the future. I can recommend anyone who needs to design one, to test this app first. E.g. some business cards have an M in front of the mobile number, and this is also scanned and must be deleted afterwards.

Summary:
Features - 5.0
Appearance - 5.0
Usability - 5.0
Value - 3.5
Overall: 4.6 stars our of 5

Shape Services provided a copy of BC Reader for this review

New York, Charlie Mallow, Jan 23 2010

Usually I wait till the end of a review to become opinionated about an Application. After having used IM+ from Shape Services it is difficult for me to hold back my feelings. It is said that it takes 10,000 oysters to find a pearl. I have found that the same holds true for iPhone apps. I have installed hundreds of Apps and there is only a handful that I still have on my device, much less I use every day. IM+ has now joined that select group of applications I use several times a day. The All-in-One-Messenger combines messaging from Skype, AOL, MSN, Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo!, Google Talk, Jabber, ICQ and MySpace, into one complete solution.

New York, Andy Prior // Jan 21, 2010

In most of the civilized world it’s illegal to pay for blood or organs… that is unless you are paying $4.99 in the app store for this blood spattering festival of disemboweling fun. This is the iPhone tie in to the exciting new Starz series that premiers Friday January 22nd. The series carries a mature rating as it attempts an honest and gritty depiction of the era. Well, the game carries on several of the bloodiest elements that the pilot episode showcased (available for free viewing at starz.com) onto your iPhone and almost splatters the red liquid of life off the screen and onto your fingers.

Appearance / Graphics - 5
I watched the pilot episode at starz.com to round out this game review and I can tell you - this game delivers amazing realism in the Spartacus Blood and Sand world. The blood that freely flows on the TV in the first two and a half minutes of the episode are mimicked almost EXACTLY in game play. The characters you choose to play and those you fight are represented AMAZINGLY accurately from the show. Yet - I started playing this game before watching the initial episode and can tell you - this game SQUARELY stands on it’s own. It certainly has feel comprised of sounds and experiences that harken back to button mashing arcade blockbusters Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat - complete with killing moves. Ohh - and every hack with the sword, mace or mallet leaves a nice spattering of on screen blood!

Features - 4
Single player campaign (although pretty short), quick play mode and multiplayer mode gives this game a pretty high degree of flexibility in playing. Additionally, there’s a long list of functional combo moves that it takes some time to master, partly because of the complexity and partly because of the controls (more on that in the next section). The option menu only lets you mess with sounds in the game - I wholly expected some fun in there - like blood levels. Overall, the number of features here is on par with what you expect for this type of game - no more - no less.

As for WiFi multiplayer - I actually had a chance to try this out when a kid in a coffee shop walked over to me (while I was playing) and asked if I wanted to play him.  I won’t retell the slaughter and carnage his pubescent skills brought down on me - but I can tell you two things - networked play is slick and works really well and he also shared the concerns in the next section.

Playability/Emotion - 3
This is a tough category for an hack and slash game to really rise to a perfect score on. Really - do you want an emotional attachment to your character that is leaving sprays of blood all over your small touch sensitive screen? Emotionally - I’m cool with the game. It fits the tv show and the genera really well and it is believable from that perspective, in reality - the arena fighter can’t possibly hold that much blood. As for controlling the hacking and the bloodmaking, well, I’m not going to condemn this game to the gladiator pit - but I am going to be clear. I think there is a fair amount of room for improvement on the controls. Really the key to this sort of game is controller responsiveness and the ability to execute the button based combos for more gruesome attacks and higher damage. While the screen never showed frame rate issues on my 3Gs - I was quite often left feeling like the controls were not responding to my taps. Sure, it’s easy to blame the software if the ONLY time I experienced that sensation was when I was the target of the hacking and slashing…  but there were many times where I had the upper hand in a brawl and felt as if the controls were preventing my accelerated bloodletting of my opponents (to be clear Jake, I never felt like I had the upper hand when fighting you - and thanks for your review input).

Value - 4
Can anyone really put a price tag on the satisfaction of hacking your opponent into multiple chinks in a fountain of bloody goodness? For the iTunes store price of $4.99 - I think they tried… and if you are a fan of blood and hacker slasher games… and are interested in the show on Starz… well, I think you have a winner here. For me the two biggest issues overall were the controls and the rather short nature of the storyline play mode. The visual nature of the game and the tactile vibration of a pummeling was very cool. I don’t know if this is the best hack and slash game out there but it is a very visual and solid entry.

At the height of Rome - the gladiator was the movie star. This game uniquely lets fans of the new series on Starz be part of the drama and unfolding saga that is Spartacus Blood and Sand. I’m really impressed with the tight weaving of this interactive component with actual show footage for cut scenes and the level of brutality the game portrays. Certainly this game isn’t for everyone due to the blood and violent life ending moves… but, then again, neither were the gladiator games of old. So - whether you swear your allegiance to Rome or to Sparta - you can expect to do battle with this solid game.

Summary:
Features - 5.0
Appearance - 4.0
Usability - 3.0
Value - 4.0
Overall: 4.0 stars our of 5

NOTE: Artificial Life provided a licensed copy of “Spartacus: Blood and Sand” for this review.

Brussels, Robin Bollen // Jan 14, 2009

Welcome to the 4th part of our low cost GPS app series. I don’t know if you have already checked out one of the previews covered apps like amAze, Nav4All or even Roadee. Today we can add another recently released GPS app called Kapten.

Kapten uses TeleAtlas maps and is out in multiple editions; Kapten GPS Multitransport Europe, North America and Kapten is available per country or group of small countries.

Let’s find out what this Kapten GPS Multitransport is all about and if it brings an added value for the iPhone crowd.

New York, Tony Karakashian // Jan 13, 2009

Recently, Shape Services asked us to take a look at their remote desktop client offering: RDM+.  Having already run through a comparison of two of the major players in the iPhone remote desktop client arena, I was up to give it a run through. Spoiler alert: my poor co-reviewers missed out on a great app.

Depending on your needs, one of the other apps reviewed earlier might still be a better fit for you.  But, RDM+ brings to the table an option the others can’t: the ability to control your PC when you’re not at home. The other offerings in the field all work over a local Wi-Fi connection, meaning your iPhone and computer need to be on the same network to work.  If you’re out and about, that’s obviously not possible.  If your machine is behind a firewall at home using NAT, it’s almost impossible.  Sure, you could open ports on the firewall allowing you to access it, but you need to be very sure of what you’re doing to ensure you don’t open yourself up to significant security risks.

RDM+ takes a different approach requiring you to install their agent on the PC you want to control (the agent is available if you’re a PC or a Mac).  This agent allows their service to circumvent anything in between your iPhone and your computer allowing you to control it as long as you have some kind of access to the Internet. The communication runs through Shape’s servers and channels where it is heavily encrypted.  This does introduce a drawback in that you’re dependant on their service remaining up, but I’m sure they work hard to make sure that doesn’t happen.

To get started, purchase RDM+ from the App Store. The price, currently $19.99, is a one-time fee that will cover the cost of the service. You then install the agent, which will assign your computer a unique ID that you then put into the client to connect (you can install the agent on as many machines as you want).  The process is quick and painless. One thing that might be an issue is that it also installs what they call a “video hook driver”. If you’re not an admin on the box you’re installing, it might not work.  If you’ve used VNC, you’re familiar with this. It’s an add-on to your video card driver that allows the remote driver to cache some of the screen to make screen paints happen faster. If a portion of the screen doesn’t change, why resend it?

Tin hat types at this point are flipping their shiny lids right now.
I can’t say I blame them, you’re offering desktop access to a machine on your network and have to provide login information and such. This really isn’t for tin hat types, though.  And, anyway, there are ways to make this even more secure if you’re really worried about it (hint: think a virtual machine that’s just for using this service…)

So, how well does it work? My short answer is “very well”.  Even over 3G, the performance is acceptable enough if you need to get in and do some quick task. Are you going to be using this to do a lot, though? No. You won’t be using this to browse the web. If I click on the Start button on my machine, for example, it takes up to 10 seconds for it to show on the screen of my iPhone. Clicking “All Programs” takes an equal amount of time to respond.  Just getting an application to launch can take 30-45 seconds, and each screen change takes just as long.

Since I’m a know-it-all, I’ll provide my suggestions on how to improve the product (In my defense, I’m a Citrix Xenapp admin for my day job. I’ve got a lot of experience making apps run smoothly over low bandwidth…) Fortunately, it’s a short list: give more configurability in the display options. For example, the other apps of this type offer you the ability to reduce the color depth used or even resize the screen to a smaller resolution.  Each of these can dramatically decrease the amount of bandwidth needed to make RDP flow smoothly. The only option provided by the vendor is to disable the wallpaper on the desktop.  Useful, but reducing color depth will got a lot further since the wallpaper will typically be covered by the app you’re running.

One last mention is their unique solution to mouse clicks.  With the remote desktop apps, I found myself very frequently zooming in on an area to click since the objects on screen are very small. I’d scroll over, zoom in, click, zoom out, move somewhere else on the screen, zoom in, click…RDM+ has a novel approach: the mouse pointer doesn’t move, you move the screen under it. Then, tap anywhere on the screen to register a mouse click where the pointer is. If you want to right or double-click, simply tap and hold and it brings up a menu with different options. At first I was annoying, but very quickly I found this way of doing it a whole lot faster and smoother.

The short is: if you want to be able to easily and securely connect to your PC from wherever you are in the world, RDM+ gives you the option to do so. It works great, performance is acceptable and it’s easy to use. If Shapes offers more configuration options to decrease the display and increase performance, it’ll be a killer app.

Features - 3.5
Appearance - 5.0
Usability - 4.0
Value - 4.5
Overall: 4.25 stars out of 5

NOTE: SHAPE Services provided a licensed copy of “RDM+ Remote Desktop for Mac OS and Windows” for this review.

DataViz attempts to fill a very large hole in functionality for mobile business users. Editing word docs on the go is a very important part of life for any mobile professional.  With that said, syncing your documents and getting them into a third party app is a very tough hurtle to overcome for IPhone developers. Apple doesn’t provide the option to do this from within the native mail application. Therefore, IPhone users are unable to create/edit a native word document or even send that document as an attachment.

Yamaha fits this device in their “Audio4iPod and DTA (Desktop Audio)” product line. Yamaha’s website invites us to “enjoy the music from all your favorite sources for this attractive “all in one audio system”, in any room in the house.”

Let’s check whether it’s worthwhile to accept this invitation…

Unpacking

Appearance and design: 3.5

Inside the box you’ll find:

•The Yamaha TSX-130.

•A remote control with battery included.

The set has a “retro” touch, which makes it look interesting. The front of the TSX-130 is the highlight, the integration of the two 8 centimeter speakers, the screen design and its LEDs (also retro), makes the set visually appealing.

Given its size (350 x 120 x 240 mm) and 4 Kg of weight, I would not recommend it for a little bedside table; it’s somehow big and bulky. It strikes me that they haven’t thought of this, because one of the features of the Yamaha TSX-130, is the clock radio.

The set that I have discussed is cream colored and has, at its top, a wooden sheet. It doesn’t have a conventional color scheme, the other available version (black and dark wood), seems to me more beautiful.

Rock n ‘Roll

Functions: 4.0 
Ease of use: 4.0

The sound quality produced by the two 15W speakers is pretty good. The REFEX basses are reinforced through two ports located on the back of the device; these ports act as echo chambers, providing low power and resonance frequencies. The small 30 cm separation of the two speakers, limits the stereo effect, but despite everything, the balance is good. The midrange clarity is surprising since sometimes the reflex ports masks these audio levels. Highs are a bit distorted with very high notes or high volumes; far away from this range of frequencies, the behavior is good. Although the sound and tone are generally good, they are far from the High Fidelity. It lacks an equalizer, I would be glad with only two or three configutarions by default. There is a default Equaliser “DSP” button on the remote gives you 5 settings.

The sound level is adequate if you are near the TSX-130 or to provide ambient sound. If you look for power, this device is more than discreet.

The Yamaha TSX-130 also has a USB port, making it compatible with MP3 players and external hard drives (the navigation through files in the latter can be difficult). The appliance comes with a built-in CD player being compatible with MP3 & WMA, and also features a FM tuner. You can’t play DRM protected files.

The brightness of the LCD display can be adjusted (there is also an automatic adjustment function, that changes the display with the brightness of the room). The set has clock and dual alarm functions. The alarm can’t be selected for the days of the week, but you can choose what sounds you want to wake up with (music stored on the iPhone, beeps, melodies or a combination of the above).

The dock is at the top. When connecting the iPhone, it will ask if you want to activate the “airplane mode” to prevent interference. If you accept, note that you can’t receive calls.

At the top of the console will also find buttons (it’s strange that you can’t change radio stations with those buttons, just with the remote). The remote control is well designed; it’s small, lightweight and easy to use. To access all functions of the TSX-130 you use the remote, the menu isn’t obvious but doesn’t pose much difficulty; it is not necessary reading the user manual.

Surprisingly, the Yamaha TSX-130 has no input to connect an external audio source. Another feature that I miss is Wi-Fi connectivity.

Conclusion

Value: 3.5

The Yamaha TSX-130 offers many benefits, a proper sound and a reasonable volume. You can listen to music stored on various digital media, you can listen to the radio (including DAB) and it has multiple alarm options. Quality materials are used and the finish of the product is good. In contrast, no auxiliary audio input or Wi-Fi connectivity is supported. With a suggested retail price of 355 €, I think I’m not asking a lot, include the last two functions that I mentioned would be great.

TOTAL: 3.75

DANIEL FERNÁNDEZ

NOTE: Yamaha has given the device for test purposes freely.