Sizing up Philips DS3205 iPhone 5 speaker dock

Hi. I'm David Carnoy, Executive Editor for CNET.com and I'm here with the Philips room-to-room speaker dock for the iPhone 5 and iPod Touch, as well as the iPod Nano. This is a lightning equipped speaker dock. It also goes by the model number DS3205. This is the middle lightning speaker dock in Philips' line. It's also a smaller speaker dock with a clock, as well as portable unit. It looks more like a table top radio. Really this model, the highlight of this model is that it sounds good for its size. It's an attractive unit, this does sound better than the entry-level speaker dock from Philips. It has more bass, it also just plays louder and offers more clarity. But only a few buttons on the unit itself is the power button at the top as well as the volume control button that's just below the dock. The lightning dock itself scribbles a little bit, as a little bit of playing it. What is a little bit problematic is the auxiliary input. There is an auxiliary input on the back so you could hook this up and make this your computer speaker. The only problem is that when you dock a device in the dock, you don't get any sound of the speaker from that auxiliary input. I should also mention that Philips also has a thirty conversion of the speaker dock and that has a USB port on the back that allows you to sync with your computer, also has a pass-through USB port. Doesn't allow you to charge the device but allows you to sync. This model doesn't have that feature, doesn't have any sort of USB port and that older model actually cost a lot less than this model. This one costs around $130 at launch. So, it's a little but expensive for what it is. The final feature worth pointing out on this unit is there is a battery bay, gives you about 8 hours of power from those 4 AA batteries. That's pretty good. So, all-in-all, I did like the speaker dock, although I do have a few reservations, particularly about that lack of sound through the auxiliary input when you have a device docked in the speaker. But it does deliver good sound for its size and it is an attractive looking unit. I'm David Carnoy and it's the Philips room-to-room docking speaker DS3205. Thanks for watching.