[ MUSIC ]
^M00:00:02
>> [David Carnoy:] I'm David Carnoy, executive editor for CNET.com, and I'm here with the Sharp iElegance DKAP7N. That is a mouthful, but this is a small iPod speaker system. It is a portable iPod speaker system: you can plug it into the wall, or you can put batteries into it and take it with you on the go. One of the nice things about it is that it's a good-looking portable iPod speaker. It has a nice, high-gloss black finish on the outside; when you flip it open, there's some white on the inside. There's also a version that has red on the inside, so it's kind of a cool-looking little system. It only has a couple of buttons that you have to deal with: there is a power-on button that has a couple little lights on it, and there's some volume buttons. No remote comes with the system, so you do have to have to use those buttons for the volume, and the only way to control your iPod is to actually go to your iPod and touch the buttons on it. Finally, there is a button that is a sort of a sound-expander button; it's called "eSound." Why you would ever turn it off is kind of beyond me, because it really sounds a lot thinner when you have it off, so you wanna keep that button on at all times. Most of these tiny little speakers don't sound all that good, and this one doesn't sound great either, but it doesn't sound half-bad, and that's really sort of an achievement for one of these small iPod speaker systems. There is a little subwoofer in there, so you do get a little bit of bass, but don't expect to get a whole lot of oomph out of these speakers. And also don't expect to play it very loud without getting some distortion. Couple of connectivity notes: around back you will find a auxiliary input so you can connect another audio system, portable audio system, or even a portable DVD player. There's also a composite video out jack; it's not an S video out for your iPod videos. So if you have the cable -- it's not included -- you can connect this little system to the TV and get both video and sound out of it. In terms of battery life, it doesn't come with rechargeable batteries unfortunately, and you're not supposed to use them with the system -- at least that's what the instructions say. We stuck a couple of alkaline batteries in here, and it's supposed to give you about 8 hours of operation, which is not bad, but you will end up using a lot of batteries if you wanna go totally portable with this at all times. The system does come with a little cloth carrying bag -- there's a carrying bag for both the speaker and the AC adapter, which is kinda nice, so you can put this in your luggage and not worry about it getting scratched up. I've David Carnoy, and that's the Sharp iElegance DKAP7N iPod speaker system.
^M00:02:33
[ MUSIC ]
