Altec Lansing portable speakers, they're just great

I owned a couple of portable speakers in the past. But my latest pair blows them all.

When you travel, it's nice to have your music with you. Most portable speakers I have owned where either expensive, bulky or had bad sound quality. But now I've found the perfect travel companion.

Actually, I bought these for my daughter to replace her broken radio/CD player. Now that all of here music fits on a MP3 player, it's more convenient to just have a compact battery powered speaker instead of a full portable CD player.

I picked up these speakers because they where so cheap. I paid 20 € at Carrefour for this inMotion iM500 model. Since they are so small and thin, I wasn't expecting much from the sound quality. But once I I plugged in my iPod Nano, I was blown away. They provide a stunning clear sound with a more then acceptable volume for their price. Not at all laptop-tinnish, but a full broad soundstage. Of course the "fake bass" technology is no substitute for a real subwoofer, but it is remarkable how this psycho-acoustic effect tricks your ears.

There's only 1 feature I miss that would make this a perfect product: The 6 AAA batteries that power the unit are not recharged, neither by the USB connector nor by the mains power. Maybe I'll heat up my soldering iron one of these days and hack in a charger chip somewhere.