Long-term Review| iTech Bluetooth PowBOX


Photo of my chin by Carlo Ma. GuerreroI fell in love with the concept of the iTech Bluetooth PowBOX, so much so that Howard and I went on a little bidding war for it during its press launch last December. It is, after all, an MP3 player that also served as a Bluetooth headset. And isn’t that a truly complementary pairing? (Pardon the geeky pun.)

Well, after more than half a year living with the PowBOX, here’s my time-tested verdict.

Connectivity
First and foremost, the PowBOX is a 256MB MP3 player. Now 256MB may not sound like much these days but, trust me, it’s enough to get by—provided you remember to update your playlist before you leave the house. After all, unlike mobile hard drives (such as the iPod) that allow you to bring ALL your music with you, flash players require careful planning on a daily basis.

…Which means that if you’re having a really melancholy day and the only music that you have on your player is from the Beastie Boys, then you’re basically screwed.

The PowBOX connects to your PC via a USB cable. The downside is that it uses a proprietary connector (the port does double-duty as a power socket). You can’t just use any standard mini-USB cable for it, so don’t lose the cable.

The unit is detected as an external storage device, as should be the case. While it’s connected to your PC, all onboard functions are disabled and the PowBOX serves basically as a dumb drive.

Annoyance: the cable’s PowBOX-side connector is not idiot-proof. It is easy to connect it the wrong way if you press hard enough, so keep an eye on how you’re plugging the thing in.

The PowBOX also supports wireless data transfer (receiving only) via Bluetooth. But don’t try it. Just… don’t. Transferring a single 4MB MP3 file alone threatens to take up to 30 minutes, meaning that the Bluetooth link is about as sluggish as a dial-up connection. You can, however, still use the Bluetooth link for uploading small work files, and this can be useful when your officemate needs to hand you something and he happens to have Bluetooth (and you didn’t bring your proprietary USB cable).

To pair your devices, press the “Bluekey

Information and Links

Join the fray by commenting, tracking what others have to say, or linking to it from your blog.

Information
August 5th, 2005
8 Responses
Feeds and Links
Comment Feed
From This Author
Del.icio.us
Digg
Technorati
Categories
Gadget
Audio-Video

Other Posts
July|August is here!
The ICE Age is Here

 


Write a Comment

Take a moment to comment and tell us what you think. Some basic HTML is allowed for formatting.

Reader Comments

Comment Number:
1
Written by:
Edwin Tanpoco
Posted on:
8/7/2005 at 10:39 pm

Kewl review!! But can it serve as a BT stereo headset for mp3’s played from the phone?

I.e. If I play mp3’s from my e398 and the powbox is paired with it, will I be able to listen to the music from my phone in stereo?

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
Art Ilano
Posted on:
8/8/2005 at 6:54 am

HOLY SMOKES! Now why didn’t I think of testing that?! :)

Well, I tried it just now, pairing the Nokia 6230i with the PowBOX (as audio enhancement). The answer? Yes–I’m listening to the Brandenburg Concierto No. 3 right now, wirelessly piped in from the phone’s MP3 player to the PowBOX.

The sound quality is satisfactory, although with very obvious compression. The latest Bluetooth releases are supposed to support high fidelity audio, but this isn’t it just yet.

I don’t think you’d want to do this on a regular basis though, unless the PowBOX’s 256MB is not quite enough, heheh. Using Bluetooth can be a battery drain to both the PowBOX and your phone. But it’s a nice party trick to have for when you want to listen to your friend’s MP3 collection in his device on your headset while you’re mingling around. ;)

Note that while it’s serving as your phone’s MP3 player, there is NO way for you to wrest control of the PowBOX until your phone finishes its music list (or until a call comes in). You can’t even turn off Bluetooth. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing–just an observation.

Annoyance: When a call did come in, the PowBOX served its job of taking the call. But strangely, after the call, the music did not kick back in. Which kind’a defeats the purpose of the MP3 player/phone linkage since I had to pair the devices again after each interruption. Argh.

Thanks for the heads-up! :)

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
Gadgetism.org
Posted on:
8/8/2005 at 6:28 pm

Long-term Review| iTech Bluetooth PowBOX
[Source: Da Wireless Kubo (Home of the m|ph Editors)] quoted: Transferring a single 4MB MP3 file alone threatens to take up to 30 minutes, meaning that the Bluetooth link is about as sluggish as a dial-up connection. You can, however, still use th…

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
mark
Posted on:
8/22/2005 at 5:25 pm

where can i buy that and how much!!!!!!!

Comment Number:
5
Written by:
Art Ilano
Posted on:
9/23/2005 at 12:23 pm

mark: where can i buy that and how much

The local distributor for the PowBox is I-Tech Intersystems TEchnologies. You can get in touch with them at their office numbers, 7226611 and 7268467. They can then let you know the current price and where you can find it. :)

Comment Number:
6
Written by:
heidz
Posted on:
3/6/2006 at 4:49 pm

how much did you buy yours? :D

Comment Number:
7
Written by:
Art Ilano
Posted on:
3/7/2006 at 6:24 am

heidz: how much did you buy yours?

Well I got mine at a public bidding event that was held as a promo for it, so I got it for a low P4,500 :D

If you’re wondering how much it is going for right now at the stores, I’d say around seven-ish? Not sure though…

Comment Number:
8
Written by:
TheEdge
Posted on:
4/10/2006 at 10:37 am

Art,

How do you get the powBOX to function as if it is picking up an A2DP signal to listen to songs from my phone (in my case a HTC Universal)?