Review: Altec Lansing Orbit portable speaker

The Orbit IM207 is pocket-sized portable speaker, powered by three AAA batteries and designed to play music from portable media players and mobile phones.

Sitting with the speaker pointing directly up, it emits sound in all directions.

There are no control buttons on the device: it is switched on and off by twisting the top section. There is no volume control, so you need to use the control on the device playing the music.

The supplied cable is short at 6in and it has a standard headphone plug on the end. As there are some devices that use a smaller 2.5mm plug rather than the standard 3.5mm type, an adapter is supplied in the box.

Sound quality is better than might be expected from such a small speaker. It won't replace your hifi but it is satisfactory. Depending on the source it can produce high volumes but the small size of the speaker means there's little bass to speak of.

It costs £30 so it won't break the bank and would make a great gift for teenagers who will repay you by playing their music on the train and bus with slightly better quality than from a mobile phone's built-in speaker.