The iPod accessory market is huge. It's so big that there are many successful businesses that only sell iPod accessories and do very well out of it. Cases are the most popular add-on (cheapskates) with speaker docks following closely behind. As far as speaker docks go there are some real heavyweight players throwing their weight around the arena; Harmon Kardon, Jamo, Monitor Audio, Klipsch, Bose and even Apple themselves, so if you want to join this fight you'll need a trick or two up your sleeve.

SDI is hoping that their product, the iHome iH5R, has the necessary niche that'll help it get a foothold: it's an iPod clock/radio. Believe it or not this hasn't been done before, there are speakers a plenty but nobody's thought to update the classic clock/radio to accommodate an iPod. Blimey.

To make things clear then, the iH5R is not designed to compete head to head with the big boys of audio, but to sit on your bedside table and awaken you from the land of nod in the morning. SDI promise great sound, useful features and, above all, a low entry price of around £90. Let's see what it can do then…

Form, functions and features

The iHome iH5R is smaller than you imagine but perfectly formed. We really like the straight forward symmetrical contours, the attractive controls and the gloss finish - shows that clock/radios don't have to be hideous (Bush/Alba - take note!). The relatively large LCD display features a blue glow, which sits happily between being bright enough to allow easy viewing but not so bright that it's going to keep you up at night.

Navigational options are divided between the two large circular buttons which flank the iH5R - they control volume and generic settings (e.g. setting the time) - the three rows of buttons along the top - these control which function is active, some alarm options and the snooze function - and, lastly, the remote which allows you to skip tracks on the iPod, adjust the volume and hit the all important snooze button. Round the back you'll find a line-in, a line-out, Daylight Savings Time, Clock Adjust, 12/24hr adjust, the FM aerial and a port for the AM antenna (supplied).

Setting the alarm and tuning the radio is easy enough though it does suffer from the usual clock/radio thing of being a little unintuitive (use of the manual will probably ensue for the first time or so). One massive oversight, as far as we're concerned, is the lack of memory options for radio stations: you can't save any presets. Not really acceptable these days, DAB we can just about do without, especially at this price point, but no presets? Come on!

Tinny, or not tinny: that is the question.

Somewhat surprisingly the iHome iH5R sounds pretty darned good. Does the bass shake your house on a par with Jamo's i300? Do the mids and trebles sound as though you could reach out and touch them like Audica's MPS-1? Well no, but for 90 quid the tinny coughs and splutters you might expect are nowhere to be heard.

Utilising something called Reson8 the iHome creates bass sounds through a kind of muffling process in the case's enclosures, sounds dodgy in theory but in practice sounds quite good. Testing a wide range of musical styles the iH5R proves to be a bit of an all rounder with nothing out and out not working. The bass is reasonable, the mids solid and the trebles satisfying. It's impressive that you get such a good range from such a small speaker package. Overall, in the context of a clock/radio, the sound is very good and may even go some way to alleviating the pain of being woken up in the morning.

At a glance
The good	Stylish design; good sound quality; affordable
The bad	No radio preset options
Overall:	Arguments against iPod speaker docks always centre around the fact that you can just buy a 3.5 to phono cable for next to nothing, connect your iPod to your existing speakers and hence make your own iPod dock at a fraction of the cost. The same, however, isn't true of a clock/radio so it looks as though SDI has carved a niche for itself. Despite a couple of niggling issues the iH5R looks great, delivers sound far better than you may expect and comes in at a very reasonable price point. If you want to wake up to the sounds of your iPod then, currently, there is no better way than with the iHome.
Design:
Features:
Value:

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