Vestalife Firefly Speaker Dock for iPod (photos)
If you're looking for a unique speaker dock for your iPhone or iPod, the Vestalife Firefly is a good option with solid sound quality, a small footprint, and several handy features.
One of Vestalife's array of winged speakers is the $130 Firefly, an iPod and iPhone dock with a solid feel, compact design, and pleasing audio quality. For those who are after a different-looking portable speaker with a reasonable smattering of extras, this unit could fit the bill.
Despite the obvious fact that the Vestalife Ladybug is modeled after a cutesy insect, the speaker is not overtly adorable. When the wings containing the speaker modules are folded in, the unit forms a compact ball (roughly 6 inches in diameter) that nonetheless retains an insect-like and vaguely alien look.
That is, if a technologically-advanced, insectan species of extraterrestrials sent exploratory pods to Earth, you could imagine them looking something like this speaker. Naturally, such a creature would offer its pods in an array of metallic colors: red, silver, or black.
Unfolding the wings of the Firefly reveals a central iPod dock, for which Vestalife includes five snap-on adapters for the various iPods.
Just in front of the cradle, you'll find a pair of tactile volume buttons along with a row of LEDs that indicate the current level; these all glow purple when the unit is powered on. A power key located on the front bottom edge is the only other button on the speaker.
Playback controls are found on the included remote, which can play/pause, shuttle through tracks, adjust volume, switch between shuffle and repeat modes, and navigate among menus. Vestalife also includes a cable for attaching non-iPod audio sources (or the Shuffle).
Flipping the Firefly around and checking out the backside reveals the majority of its features, as well as a 3-inch subwoofer concealed beneath a plastic speaker grille and circled by a shiny accent ring. A variety of ports line the bottom edge of the subwoofer, including the standard AC power jack. In addition, there's a Mini-USB port for pass-through syncing, an AV out jack, and an auxiliary line input for using the speaker with the iPod Shuffle and non-iPod MP3 players.
The bottom of the unit conceals a battery compartment that takes four AA batteries for true portable use. The Firefly does not offer an alarm function or an FM tuner.
The sound quality offered by the Firefly speaker is surprisingly good for a unit of its size, though it must be said that positioning has a lot to do with one's listening experience--it's best to have the speaker pointing directly at you.
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