iPig is powerfully cute - technology review

Speakal's iPig is powerfully cute

I have recently had the pleasure of checking out the Speakal dockable ipod speaker system.  At first glance you might think it was a toy but it is not. It has 4 speakers (tweeters under the ears, the eyes are the mid range) and a 4"inch sub woofer located on the bottom of the pig. Imagine if you a large boombox and a anime character mated you would have the iPig. I have never turned the thing up to full volume. It is 5x more powerful than any other dockable system out there and it also has an aux input so I can plug my laptop, PSP, Satellite Radio, and Xbox into it.  A standard 3.5 mm stereo plug will feed the pig with any unbalanced audio input. 

When the system is powered on ( switch in the back) the mouth lights up and blinks when the remote control is being used. Visual feedback to let you know it is listening to you.

The mouth also serves as the vent for all of the power the iPig contains. I can dial in the sub woofer with a manual control in the back for the perfect sound for the space I am in. 

I also found it works best on a counter, a desk, or shelf rather than the floor. It will fill the room with sound. 

Along with the small form factor it also has a remote which is handy but the cool thing is the haptic or touch control for volume. Touch the right ear to raise the volume or touch the left ear to lower the volume.  The colors are environmentally color safe which is probably why they are only sold in 3 color combinations, white, pink, and yellow.
 

When you pick it up it feels heavy, there are some serious magnets in these speakers. A typical hard drive power supply feeds the iPig, it does not run on batteries. I am telling you this is a serious speaker system. We tested the iPig at an outdoor party with an iPod and the remote worked well, the volume was so loud we spent most of the time turning it down. We even watched a Foo Fighters video on it. We got tired of the songs on my friends iPod and so we hooked up my satellite radio to it and let it crank out the jams. At the end of the party everyone wanted one. I had to keep on an eye on because it is the size of a large starbucks coffee and it wants to be loved.

If there was anything I could improve upon this speaker system would be blue tooth, so it would be easy to power my mobile device. Only 3 people could watch the video on the iPod so a video out for it would be cool.  But for a laptop playing back videos no problem in watching and hearing it in stereo. The price for 140 retail is comparable to the other high end dockable speakers on the market but you get so much more for your money with this system.

For its size and power it is a no brainer purchase even if you do not have an iPod.