Product: iTrip Auto 2010
Supplier: Griffin Technology
MSRP: $69.99      Find Lowest Price @ PriceGrabber
Author: Garret
Date: July 11, 2010

If you’re like me, your car is a little too old to rock an auxiliary output connection for attaching your i<insert device name> or Zune.  Generally the only alternative to installing a new deck is to either use a cassette adapter or settle for an FM Tuner adapter.  While you are sacrificing quality ,FM transmits much lower than the 256k iTunes Plus you can buy, it’s often the quickest and easiest solution.  Griffin Technology iTrip Auto 2010 is Griffin’s latest FM Transmitter/Charging solution and offers some new, exciting features.

Initial Impressions:

I was very excited to receive this device in the mail; it’s fairly priced, packs in impressive feature set, and is actually fully compatible with my iPhone 3G and now iPhone 4.  .  A quick rundown of the features are as follows:

• RDS Information transmitted to the radio
• SmartScan (the transmitter selects the best station for you to transmit on)
• Free app from the App Store that allows you to control the device straight from the phone
• Toggle song playback from the device
• Programmable stations
• SmartSound
• Stereo/Mono selection

Play Time:

The first thing I did was download the iTrip app (free) from the app store (which unfortunately broke with the iOS 4 update.)  The iTrip app allows you to configure about 90% of the iTrip Auto, the only thing that I noticed it couldn’t do was alter what was displayed on the iTrip Auto display.  Setting up the device couldn’t be simpler; it’s basically plug and go.

The iTrip Auto plugs right into the phone and after plugging the other end into your cigarette lighter, the phone immediately starts charging.  Charge time to 80% is relatively quick at ~30-45mins, and, of course, quite a bit longer to finish off the remaining 20% charge.  Configuration from the actual iTrip itself was a little tedious; the iTrip Configuration App became an instant favorite as a result.  Well, until iOS 4 broke it that is.

The first option is the ability to use the SmartScan to automatically detect a frequency to transmit on.  I personally never had good luck with this feature, I do live in a metro area of over 1 million people so unutilized frequencies are few and far between, but the SmartScan rarely detected the 2 or 3 frequencies that actually aren’t used by radio stations.  It more often than not would select a utilized frequency but whose station was had a weak broadcast.   However, manually selecting your own station is a breeze, you can either use the simple +- buttons for quick changes, or you can press the tuner button to be presented with a dial to spin and tune to your preferred station.

Driving around town, I did notice quite a bit of interference depending on the part of town I was in.  Switching the transmitter to “Mono” does indeed help as described, but it’s mono sound.  Listening to mono sound is fine for voice podcasts and audio books but not for music.  The volume was also something to be desired.  I found myself having to max out the volume on my radio in order to have a decent sound come out of my speakers.  Supposedly the SmartSound is supposed to enhance this, but unfortunately all it did was mute my sound even more.  Maybe I didn’t give it enough time to kick in; it’s something I’ll have to continue to play with.

Conclusion:

Overall the iTrip Auto is a very solid product, that being said it does have some quirks to it with regards to audio interference from other radio stations, and even in some cases other transmitters from cars driving by (ie XM-Radio transmitters.) But as far as FM Transmitters go it’s one of the better ones out on the market.  It’s very well built, and interfaces great with the iPhone.

Pros

+ Size
+ Compatible with iPhone 4 and iOS 4 (with the exception of the on phone app)
+ RDS

Cons

- Weak Transmitter
- Interference was frequent
- SmartSound isn’t working as advertised

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Tags: Auto, FM, Griffin, iTrip, tuner