Why You Can Trust CNET Sony TRiK RDH-SK8iP review: Sony TRiK RDH-SK8iP
Sony's tricked-out speaker dock lets you set the fashion tone. It's also a decent — but not great — speaker dock.
Sony TRiK RDH-SK8iP
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
Design
In the nine years since Apple launched the first iPod, we've seen all kinds of iPod docks. Big iPod docks. Small iPod docks. Even iPod docks shaped like the Hindenburg. It's nowhere near enough in the competitive iPod speaker dock market to simply exist and sound reasonable. You've got to have some kind of visual gimmick.
Sony's latest iPod speaker dock, the RDH-SK8iP, or to give it its less formal name the TRiK, comes with not one but four visual gimmicks. They come in the form of interchangeable graphic skins that sit underneath the protective plastic plate behind the iPod/iPhone speaker dock. The theory is that you can switch between the four provided skins, labelled as Hip Hop, Street, Chic or Urban Logic as your needs and tastes demand.
Sony has a download channel for new designs on DeviantArt and provides the blank templates in PSD or PDF format so you can design and print your own.
Features
Beyond the skins trick, the TRiK is a 75W RMS iPod/iPhone speaker dock with a 3.5mm headphone jack. The TRiK measures in at a hefty 605x190x165mm and weighs 6.3kg, so it's not an entirely portable experience. The TRiK's remote control is similar to many other iPod dock remotes in that it's a credit-card-sized unit that's eminently easy to misplace.
Performance
The TRiK comes with four skins that all sit comfortably behind the plastic shield that holds them in place. Switching them over is quite simple. A quick twist of the holding bracket around the right speaker, then the same to the left speaker and the front cover comes off — but not either speaker, thankfully. You can then switch out the skins to taste.
The option to download additional skins or design your own is a neat one, but the size of the TRiK means a standard printer won't cut it if you want your skin in one piece. You could always print across multiple sheets and stick them together, but unless you were very precise, or used vertical lines within your design, there will be a split point somewhere.
Audio quality from the TRiK was good. The size of the unit might preclude A4 printing (logistically, you'd need an A1 printer), but it allows good separation of the speakers which improve matters over most smaller iPod/iPhone docks. It's shielded for iPhone use, but incoming calls will simply ring; you can't use it to actually answer calls if you want to hear the party on the other end of the line. We also found in our testing that the remote control wouldn't always make our test iPhone 3GS respond as we'd like, especially from any kind of distance.
Conclusion
The AU$299 price point for the TRiK is something of a sticking point. At that kind of price, your choices for quality iPod/iPhone sound expand considerably. The real selling point of the TRiK then rests on how much you like the trick of being able to change the design skins on a whim.