Practical FM Transmitter but with a quirk

Author's Rating:

Pros: TINY, IDEAL FOR USE IN A CAR, GOOD RECEPTION

Cons: LOOSES PROGRAMMED FM STATION ONCE IN A WHILE

The Bottom Line: 
It's size makes it idea for use in car, certainly has good reception. Does loose the fm station once in while though and does not have power adapter.

Apple knows how to make great products and then how to market them, too. Isn't it amazing that so many companies and industries flourished after the launch of iPod family of mp3 players? Companies making interface, software and then those making accessories for iPod, all had their share of the business.

I think Griffin Technology did a good job by coming up with some neat little products to go with iPod. I regularly use iTrip for my iPod mini. I am glad I purchased it. What attracted me most was its size and the fact that I don't need to connect any power adapter or anything in order to use it. iTrip FM Transmitter uses iPod's power to power itself. Its very tiny sits on top of your iPod thereby reducing the clutter of wires, adapters etc while you are driving. I thought this was very practical if you want to use it in a car. All it does is stores iTrip stations as files on your iPod. Each station belongs to one frequency, say, 100.1, 87.9 etc. You have to find a free FM station in your area. Free FM Station is nothing but free FM frequency with nothing being broadcast on it. iTrip's help also provides you a free link where you can get a software to find free stations in your area. For the first time you have to train your iPod to use this particular station. This procedure is fairly easy. That's it, next you just play iPod in your car with iTrip connected. If you FM radio is tuned to the programmed station, the iPod songs are played on FM Radio.

There are few points to note down here

--You must keep iPod volume to min 75% of its max in order to get good response. This is true for all FM Transmitters out there.
--iTrip does eat up iPod's battery much quicker than if you were playing the iPod withoug iTrip. So if you want to use it in a car, a charger will come in handy. Some people prefer having both fm transmitter and charger in one unit. In that case you may not be interested in this product.
--Remember I said iTrip adds all stations as files on your iPod. Now when you create your playlists or play songs at random, of course these files which are small station identifiers get also selected in your playlists. You can avoid them being selected by creating a playslist
"All Songs but iTrip" using iTune's smart playlist generator. Basically make sure you exclude songs belonging to "iTrip" album and you are all set. This is not really an issue.

Overall iTrip's size, simplicity is what I liked the best. I would like to mention one minor quirk in this product though. Once I train my iPod to use particular FM station, I noticed after some time I have to retrain my iPod to point to that station. This happens once in two months or so but its some kind of a bug and it should not happen. I don't know if the bug is in iTrip or the way iPod uses or points to FM station in iTrip. I am actually giving it 4 stars for this particular reason.