Altec Lansing Octiv Stage MP450
SOMETIMES THE SIMPLEST IDEAS ARE THE BEST. SO FAR most of the iPad docks we’ve seen have, perhaps inevitably, been great hulking beasts, more suited to a large kitchen than a desktop. The smart move the Altec Lansing Octiv Stage MP450 makes is it keeps the dock in the background, bringing the iPad to the fore, letting you get on with using the fantastic user interface while still enjoying the sound the speakers have to offer. And after all, the whole reason you’ve got the dock is to use the iPad, right?
The coolest aspect of the Octiv Stage is that it lets you flip the screen to sit landscape or portrait, to suit whether you’re watching video, surfing the web ore-reading. You can actually keep it at any angle between – handy if you’re watching a German expressionist movie and want to straighten up one of those arty, corridor-at-a-slant shots.
Because it also tilts fore and aft you can angle it perfectly for hands-free usage. Add an Apple wireless keyboard (£56) and you’ve got yourself a very small but potentially rather loud computer. What other dock offers that?
Audio isn’t the loudest around – a total of four watts isn’t much compared to, for
ADD A WIRELESS KEYBOARD AND YOU’VE GOT A SMALL BUT LOUD COMPUTER
instance, the B&W Zeppelin’s 100 watts, but its audio alignment tech does bring out the centre channel to give distortion-free sound even when cranked up. At a cheaper price than many rivals this is one pivoting dock that’s well worth a tilt.
Price £130?
SOMETIMES THE SIMPLEST IDEAS ARE THE BEST. SO FAR most of the iPad docks we’ve seen have, perhaps inevitably, been great hulking beasts, more suited to a large kitchen than a desktop. The smart move the Altec Lansing Octiv Stage MP450 makes is it keeps the dock in the background, bringing the iPad to the fore, letting you get on with using the fantastic user interface while still enjoying the sound the speakers have to offer. And after all, the whole reason you’ve got the dock is to use the iPad, right?
The coolest aspect of the Octiv Stage is that it lets you flip the screen to sit landscape or portrait, to suit whether you’re watching video, surfing the web ore-reading. You can actually keep it at any angle between – handy if you’re watching a German expressionist movie and want to straighten up one of those arty, corridor-at-a-slant shots.
Because it also tilts fore and aft you can angle it perfectly for hands-free usage. Add an Apple wireless keyboard (£56) and you’ve got yourself a very small but potentially rather loud computer. What other dock offers that?
Audio isn’t the loudest around – a total of four watts isn’t much compared to, for
ADD A WIRELESS KEYBOARD AND YOU’VE GOT A SMALL BUT LOUD COMPUTER
instance, the B&W Zeppelin’s 100 watts, but its audio alignment tech does bring out the centre channel to give distortion-free sound even when cranked up. At a cheaper price than many rivals this is one pivoting dock that’s well worth a tilt.
Price £130?
