Review: Kensington SX2000 Ipod speakers

If you've ever had the delight of visiting an Apple Store - in our opinion, the epitome of hands-on technology shopping - you'll no doubt have envied over the range of Ipod speaker systems.

Fancy and expensive designs from Bose, Altec Lansing and Apple itself leave you wishing your boss had given you that Christmas bonus after all.

However, Kensington's SX2000 is a neat-looking Ipod speaker system that costs less than £80.

It uses NXT flat-panel speaker technology, which makes for a very slim design - just 10cm deep. But it manages to exert a reasonable volume of sound, if a little overzealous on the treble, from the elongated pane.

Although there's a definite sweet spot (about five metres back, directly in the centre), it can be turned up loud enough to fill a kitchen, bedroom or living room quite comfortably.

However, at neighbour-annoying levels, the soundstage begins to crack and it's not long before the separation between bass and treble is hard to decipher.

Speaking of low rumblings, the bass is impressive but only because of the flat design; it's nowhere as crisp and punchy as the Bose Sound dock or Apple Ipod Hi-Fi. Pushing it up against a flat surface yielded better results, though.

The SX2000 supports all Ipods that have a dock connector and comes with interchangeable inserts to cradle the Ipod Nano and video Ipod.

There's a line-in socket on the back for connecting almost any audio source.

It will charge any Ipod when docked but the unit only operates on mains power. There's no remote control either, so volume has to be manually altered using buttons on the front and music has to be navigated using the Ipod's controls.

At £80 it's a cheaper option than many other cool-looking speaker systems but the drop in price is reflected in the distinctly average sound quality.