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MagicBox Tower

£59.99 including free delivery

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The maximum height of the Magicbox Tower is only 16.5cm tall (1.5cm less at the front) 8cm wide and 6.5cm deep, these figures do not include any iPod or iPhone that gets inserted 2cm below the top. The unit I reviewed was metallic red apart from the front and top that was black. I see that purple, blue and all black are also available.

The front edge of the top has volume – and + buttons with a snooze control between them. The rear has DC and auxiliary inputs and the six piece rod aerial that is 38cm long when fully extended. This leaves the units face.

At the top is the four line display 4.7x2.3cm (2inch diagonal measurement). The displays numerals and letters are white on black so even with the backlight off still viewable. Below the display are three columns of three rod buttons all their functions are clearly marked in white above the respective button, the central row have a second function when in iPod/iPhone mode and these are shown in grey under that row of rod buttons.

The display has a double depth top line to show the current time so the time numerals are .8cm tall, the contents of the third and forth line varies according to the mode you are in.

See also: iPod docking stations

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The 24 page instruction booklet is one of the best I have seen clearly laid out and anything you might be unsure of is clearly shown. Each of the unit’s four modes DAB, FM, iPod and Aux is clearly documented as are alarm settings.

On first switch on ensure that the rod aerial is fully extended as it automatically scans for DAB stations in my area it found 60 very quickly and all give a good sound providing I keep the rod aerial fully extended during use. There are a possible ten presets available and with 60 channels it does make this option far more appealing.

A single touch of the ‘mode’ button switches to FM and you are at 87.5MHz pressing the > button starts your journey up the band but if the station you want is near the top end use the < button to start from top end of the band. Holding the button will keep the search going until you find a strong station when the display will show the station name. Setting a preset is clearly laid out in the manual and you have ten available for FM use.

iPod or iPhone use goes that bit further than a lot of such devices do as the information you would normally get on your iPod is shown on line three and four of the Tower’s display, line three showing elapsed track time and line four the track title if 16 characters or less it is static and over 16 then it scrolls across the screen.

The final mode is Auxiliary where the 3.5mm socket on the back allows you to attach an MP3 player or other such device and use the Tower as an amplifier.

As yet I have failed to fault this unit there are two alarms which can be set weekday, weekend or once. You can choose to have DAB, FM, iPod or buzzer to wake you up, if the iPod is not docked and you have selected that as your wake up source you will get the buzzer. There is a snooze feature that can be set in five minute increments up to thirty minutes. Strangely though there is no sleep feature on the unit so this might be a minus point. 

For its size the sound is good, I doubt you would ever use it to fill an auditorium but as a bedside device or a desk companion it is excellent and certainly worthy of it’s highly commended rating.

Magicbox Tower is available from link below for £59.99 from Comet.co.uk, which includes free delivery.