Altec Lansing M602

Pump up your 'Pod

Ever feel your iPod isn't living up to its potential, squirting out tinny music through under-powered white headphones? Strap it into this contraption and you've got a boombox that wouldn't have looked out of place in the 80s.

Sadly, it fails on a number of counts. Pump up the volume really high and it starts to distort. It'll happily accommodate relaxed music like Teardrop by Massive Attack, but banging out Chemical Brothers' Galvanize at near-to-max volume results in some quite nasty distortion.

You can connect non-fruit-related players with a 3.5mm jack through an input on the back.

The bundled remote function is good - you can skip forward and back through tracks as well as play/pause and adjust volume. However, it looks a bit pokey and can be easily lost.

The device is mains-only, limiting its use if you want to take it on holiday. Video out enables you to watch movies from your iPod on telly, although you'll need to get an extra cable.

It's a nice design, but performance can't match its stable-mate, the IM7. At 150 smackers, it's just not worth it.