InTechSpot  

It may not be exactly what people were clamoring for at Steve Jobs' most recent media hypevent, but the Apple iPod Hi-Fi ($349 direct) is now part of Apple's steadily growing repertoire of iPod accessories. I got my hands on one and took it for a spin in the PC Magazine audio lab, and I'm very happy with it. The one-piece three-way combination speaker and iPod dock looks a lot like a center-channel speaker from a home theater system, with horizontally set drivers. Though it costs about $50 more, it can thump, sing, and squeal with a lot more power than the Bose SoundDock, plus it's portable. I'm glad Apple included a combination analog and S/PDIF optical digital input, but a video pass-through for outputting photos and video to a TV would be convenient.