Customer Reviews

Tekkeon NavDock for iPod (Silver/Black)

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

This dock performs it's advertised functions very well. I get solid, smooth sound and picture in as good a quality as can be expected given the iPod input and the dock's connection options (composite and S-video). The ability to navigate the iPod's music and video menus on screen place it well above other dock options including Apple's own Universal Dock. For those looking for some info on this device that may not be documented...

Pros (besides the obvious good stuff like menu navigation and comprehensive remote functionality):
- Very quick to start up and connect.
- The iPod can be removed from the dock at any time (playing or paused) without any bad effects.
- Displays album art.
- The dock screensaver can display your currently playing music track information and album art.
- Full shuffle and repeat options for playlists.
- Useful shortcuts on the remote to get to music and videos (and photos, but I don't use that feature).

Cons (no deal-breakers here in my opinion, just stuff that could be better):
- Movie list is ordered by the date they were added to the iPod, not alphabetically.
- You have to wait till the album art loads to skip a song.
- Oddly, any song you navigate to and play will not start until after the album art loads (7 or 8 seconds), but subsequent songs begin immediately.
- If your movie file has chapter markers, too bad, this dock won't see them. Fast-forward and reverse are your only options.
- Dock doesn't display the video playlists.
- Your ratings aren't displayed anywhere, and if you want to rate something you have to remove the iPod from the dock, rate and it, and re-dock it.

I consider this a very good buy.

I have an Onkyo receiver and Onkyo makes an iPod dock and was prepared to buy it. But I did a little more research to see if I could find reviews for it and other products. It seemed that the Tekkeon NavDock had more positive comments. So I ordered the Tekkeon. Now this is more for my wife as it was for her iPod. To be honest, I was not at all familier with the iPod features but knew that the Tekkeon supported the iPod Nano 3rd Generation.

Connecting the Tekkeon Navdock was straightforward enough. I have quite a few connections on my receiver and had to juggle a few devices as I needed a free auxillary input that also had composite video available.

It's a good thing my daughter also has an iPod so I was able to compare the two on the Navdock. When I had my wife's iPod connected, we had to turn the volume on the amplifier way up in order to hear the music on the iPod. This did not seem right to me. In fact, I called both Tekkeon and Onkyo in search of a solution. That's when trial and error troubleshooting stepped in. I "docked" my daughter's iPod and discovered her iPod played without any volume issues. The iPods are identical.

That's when I paid a visit to Apple's web site and read a bit about the possible causes. There are two settings on the iPod Nano 3G. The first one is a maximum volume setting. we made sure that setting was set to its maximum. But there was also another rather unusual setting, Volume Leveling. This setting normalizes the volume regardless of the song that is playing. This was the culprit. Once I disabled this setting, viola!, the iPod played at a normal volume level with the volume of the amplifier as a normal setting as well.

I explained all of this in case anyone runs into a similar situation. I believe that the results would have been similar regardless of docking solution.

Lastly, my only complaint, and I have not compared this to any other dock to know if this would happen in all solutions, but the iPod when docked only displays the Tekkeon logo relegating all display to the TV. So you have to turn on the TV at least initially to select your play list. Of course, if you have album art or lyrics associated with your music, you may want to see them displayed on the TV. Plus if you have videos on your iPod, you can watch them through the Tekkeon as well.

I have searched high and low for a dock and remote that is suitable for the Ipod Touch. There simply isn't anything on the market that seems to have full compatibility with the iPod Touch, and I got very frusrated with all the caveats on the different products I looked at. I finally broke down and decided to go with the Tekkeon NavDock, which wasn't perfect but seemed to get close.

Once I got it (just got it for Christmas), I was pleasantly surprised with how well it worked with the iPod Touch 2G (I also have 2.2 Firmware)!

The music works like a charm, and I had expected the music to work well. I can get to all my playlists, shuffle, and do everything you would expect to be able to do. And, I have been able to even see my album cover art too, which you aren't supposed to be able to do with the Touch -- but it works!

The photos feature is not 100% compatible with the Touch. However, I am able to setup a slideshow on the Touch screen and port the output through the NavDock ... an extra step, but it works quite well once the slideshow is going. I don't need to control my photo slideshows with the remote anyway. The photos are a bonus for me, not a need.

Now the real surprise -- the videos are working perfectly for me. I am able to navigate through my movies and TV shows WITH THE REMOTE AND ON THE SCREEN. I don't have to go over to the iPod itself to select and play a movie. Everything I read (even on the Tekkeon site) said that this would not work with the remote. But, it does. And, that is why I had to come write this review and give 5 stars. I am thrilled that I am able to navigate both my videos and my music through the NavDock with the remote. And the video is beautiful on my big screen TV... its so much better than I would have anticipated.

I just love this thing! If you are looking for a dock for the Ipod Touch 2G, this one is probably as good as you are going to find. There isn't a perfect one out there, but this one comes darn close.

There are some reviews that talked about the menus being slow. I will attest, that the menus are a tad sluggish from time to time, but its not that bad -- for the most part, the menus and cover art come up faster than the other reviews imply.

This one is a winner!

The NavDock ND2000 is just what I'd been waiting for.

The packaging is nice; it comes with everything you need to set it up including batteries and good quality audio and video cables (not the cheapo ones most stereo equipment ships with).

Most importantly, the sound is great whether it is used with a 6 speaker system or just a small stereo.

The dock itself looks very nice (mine is silver and matches my brushed silver IPod Classic) and does not take up much room on the shelf. It's heavier than some others I've seen so it stays in place when you are taking the IPod in or out of the dock. It has the look and feel of quality, just like my IPod does.

The graphic display that appears on your TV is very nice, both aesthetically pleasing and easy to read, with adjustable color backgrounds.

The remote gives you full navigation of your IPod: Playlists, Artists, Albums, Songs, Podcasts, Genres, Composers and Audiobooks. It also allows you to set your Equalizer just like on your IPod and basically shows about everything on your TV screen that your IPod display does.

The display on the TV screen will show you what is currently playing and you can set the screensaver to come on after various lengths of time. The title of the current song always scrolls across the album cover area. Yes, it shows album covers! And you can turn that feature on or off; just like the IPod Classic it works a little faster without the album cover display turned on but I prefer to see the album covers. Anyway, it's nice to have the option.

The NavDock will play your videos and photos as well, though with photos you have to first navigate using the IPod display itself, instead of using just the display on the TV to navigate. This is the only time you ever have to look at your IPod itself when you have the NavDock connected. Everything else can be done with the NavDock remote: you can browse artists, genres, and albums and one nice feature is that the remote has a shuffle button right on it, so you don't have to go into the menu to turn shuffle on or off.

My only criticisms are that the remote could be a little more responsive and better designed, and the a.c. cable could be a little longer. But these are minor complaints and do not detract from the overall usefulness of the product, nor the joy of using it!

All in all this is a great dock, certainly the best one on the market, and it's a worthy extension of your IPod! Thank goodness, someone finally put a dock on the market worth buying!

Okay, there aren't many good docks on the market that also show your files on the tv screen and enable you to access them by remote via the menu on the tv.

So of those that I have seen and tried, this is the best.

That said, here are the problems. If you can live with them, fine, if not you'll have to wait until a better dock comes along or use AppleTV (which is ridiculously expensive and uses proprietary Apple software (ITunes) only):

1) The remote is not very powerful even with a new battery (one of those expensive little flat round batteries that are sometimes hard to find, by the way). You have to point it right AT the dock, and the further you are from it the more problems you have.
2) battery seems to weaken in a short time, making the above problem worse
3) The remote itself is finicky. That is, sometimes you have to press a button 2-3 times to get it to work, and sometimes the menu just does not respond to your command until you press it several times
4) Sometimes the display sticks, showing you the last song or the 2nd to last song instead of the current song.
5) When going through the song menu there is no quick way to get from a to z. So if you have an 80 gigger and have it loaded with thousands of songs, well, take a deep breath, hold your finger down on the down button and wait.... and wait... for it to get towards the bottom of the alphabet.
6) Has no ability to rate songs from the remote. If you want to do so you have to disconnect the pod from the dock, then rate it manually.
7) If you have it set to show cover art, it won't allow you to skip to the next song until the cover art loads which takes a 4-5 seconds.

That said, on the plus side:
It is nice looking
Takes up little space
Sounds pretty decent
Shows cover art on screen
Does what it says it does

I use mine every day, in fact it's my main source of music for my 5.1 stereo system. (I run it through my Pioneer receiver to add the rear speaker for a fake 5.1 sound.)

In spite of the criticisms above, I do love it and use it all the time. I just wish they'd put a little more time and effort into making it a 5 star unit instead of a 4 star unit.

I bought this after researching many different dock solutions, and I found this to be the best of the bunch based on specs. Not saying there isn't anything better out there, but if there is, I guess I missed it.

Now that I have it I've been using it for a while and am VERY happy with it. It was simple to set up, the OSD is very nice looking. Most of the other docks I looked at received complaints of having a very plain 'DOS-like' OSD, but this one is colorful, shows the album art, and is a very well designed interface in general.

I've been using this both with a 2nd gen nano, and my iPhone. One nice surprise was that even though the NavDock website says the dock doesn't work to navigate video or show the album art with the iPhone, that was not correct. It shows the album art fine, and I can navigate and play video using the remote just fine as well (although i can't see watching videos on my tv with this thing when there are so many better solutions...) The only thing that doesn't work with the remote is looking at pictures (with iphone).

The 5th star and icing on the cake is the fact that this works flawlessly with my Harmony One remote. Being able to keep everythiny on my harmony and not use another remote was a deal breaker for me, and this dock holds up perfectly.

Can't say enough good things about this dock. Like i said, there may be something better out there that I missed, but at the very least this is easily the best dock under $100.

This is the third brand I've tried. After purchasing, trying and then returning the two other brands' version of this type of dock, I was getting pretty wary and discouraged. The Tekkeon arrived yesterday, I installed it today, and it works perfectly. The installation is easy, the on-screen menus are nice, navigating the menus with the remote is extremely intuitive, there is no lag-time in response (as there was with the other two brands I tried), the sound is great, the video, is satisfactory...and best of all: it works as advertised. I am very pleased with this product.

I'm very happy with this product. It was what i expected. The only thing i would change is the directional knob on the remote, too small in my opinion. i recommend this dock for your home sound system.

This docking station works extremely well,very clear picture and sound, and easy navigation ( Used with iPod Classic 120GB ) If you have a problem with low volume when first used, make sure to turn up the volume to the max on the docking station.

i bought this item after buying and returning a similar product from dlo, the dlo dock didn't work well enough to be worth the $250 price tag that came with it so I got the cheaper one from tekkeon and have been very happy with it