Hands-On Review--Logitech mm50 Portable iPod Speakers

Last week we posted a review of Logitech's mm22 Portable iPod Speakers. We gave the unit a "just okay" rating. Their sound was better than a hotel room clock radio but was missing any rich bass as might be expected from the small speakers. So we continued our search, passing over Logitech's mm28 and settling on the mm50 model.

What You Get

The Logitech mm50 Portable Speakers for the iPod unit works with any iPod with a dock port except for the new iPod nano and possibly the new video iPod. The mm50 comes with plastic cradle adapters for various iPods, including the now discontinued mini. Two retractable supports hold the speaker unit upright when in use.

The mm50 has 3" pressure drivers in place of the 1.25" micro-drivers in the mm22. In addition, the mm50 unit's sound system has Logitech's 3-D technology which Logitech claims "widens" the sound field for better stereo effect.

The controls on the mm50 include a power switch, a 3-D technology switch and volume level buttons. It also has an infrared remote controller for those functions as well as the iPod's controls. There's a dock port in the back of the mm50 that allows the iPod to connect to a Mac while in the speaker unit's cradle.

Both units have an international voltage AC power adapter (100-240v). The mm50 uses internal rechargeable Li-Ion batteries while the mm22 uses four "AA" batteries. Logitech claims the Li-Ion batteries last 10 hours before needing to be recharged. The mm50's AC adapter charges both the speaker and iPod batteries.

Since the mm50 is portable, it comes with a carrying case like the mm22. But unlike the mm22, the AC adapter does not easily fit into the case, a definite negative. The remote controller and speaker unit fit fine but the case is almost impossible to close with the AC adapter inside. On the positive side, the mm50 does not have a separate iPod cradle to break or lose.

Finally, the mm50 comes with a simple printed guide on a large sheet of slick paper. Logitech includes a two-year warranty.

Use

First, we charged the batteries in the Logitech's mm50 Portable iPod Speakers overnight. With both turned off, we set our color iPod in the mm50's cradle and tried it with the AC adapter and on batteries, controlling it with the remote. The sound with our 20GB color iPod was very good. The 3-D technology provided a very noticeable improvement in the sound quality. The 3" speakers produced a very rich bass for a portable unit of this size.

The remote controller worked fine with our color iPod inserted into the mm50's cradle. We could turn the iPod and speakers on and off, pause and play, move to the next song forward or backward, scrub within a song, turn the 3-D technology on and off and change the speakers' volume. The only thing we could not do with it was select a playlist. The mm50 played songs and podcasts from our complete library using the settings of our color iPod. If we set it in the mm50's cradle with a playlist already playing, then it would play that playlist only.

Using the iPod's click wheel we were able to select playlists and change our iPod's settings (like turning Repeat from "Off" to "All") while in the mm50's cradle. However, when we removed our iPod from the cradle after using the click wheel we had serious corruption problems with the color iPod's menu system. The problems were so bad that we were unable to reset our iPod. This required us to use the iPod Update software utility to restore the iPod's software. Then, we had to reload all of our songs, playlists, photos and contacts. We don't know if this happens with all iPod models, but it's a show stopper for our 20GB color iPod with up-to-date software v1.2.

Due to the iPod software problems with the mm50, we were unable to fully test the mm50's battery time which Logitech claims is 10 hours. We were able to run our iPod and the mm50 on battery continuously for 6 hours and it was still going strong.

We tried the mm50 with our iPod nano without success. The nano fit into the cradle and we could get it to work with the remote but no sound came from the speakers.

The Logitech mm50 Portable Speakers for the iPod unit is a big step up from the mm22 in sound, features and price at $149.99. When it works, it works very well. However, given the problems we had with it corrupting the 20GB color iPod software, not playing from our iPod nano and the AC adapter not fitting into the case, we can not recommend it. [Bill Fox]