Smartphone Thoughts: Mobis Just Mobile PK1 Docking Station

Music

• Michael Jackson
  
• Madonna
  
• Air
  
• Hooverphonic
  
• Portishead
  
• Olive
  
• Finch
  
• Armor For Sleep
  
• Blues Travelers
  
• The Toadies
  
• Our Lady Peace
  
• Foo Fighters
  
• High Contrast
  
• LTJ Bukem
  
• Hybrid
  
• Shy FX
  
• Esthero
  
• Third Eye Blind
  
• Eminem
  
• Zion-I
  
• Less Than Jake
  
• Kosheen
  
• Fannypack

As you can see, my taste in music varies greatly from Drum and Bass to Emo to Hip Hop to Alternative. I'm all around the board which I figured would be good for testing this device. After a week and a half of playing with this I discovered one very important thing: anything with an exceptionally large amount of bass in it (i.e - Drum and Bass) sounds absolutely horrible on this device. Now, to some people that wouldn't matter, but let's say you prefer some form of dance music with a lot of bass in it - you might not be satisfied with the quality of a device such as this.


Figure 8: Yes, I'm listening to "Rock With You".

Podcasts

• Jason and Dave's ThoughtCast (vote)
  
• The MediaCenter Show
  
• Free Talk Live
  
• Keith and The Girl

Podcasts performed beautifully in the PK1. Granted, some of the Podcasts out there were a little hollow, but when you're just listening to someone talk it really isn't that bad at all. To be honest, listening to different Podcasts through this device was the most fun I had with it. :)


Figure 9: Here we have an image of the PK1 doing what it does best, playing a nice podcast. In fact, every podcast I played sounded fantastic from this device.

Interference
There were a few reviews I read that said there was interference with the radio on their phone when they received an incoming call or email. I can tell you first hand that I never had a problem with this, no matter how hard I tried. I sent myself twenty-two emails and called myself eight times and there was no interference at all. My only guess is that Mobis heard these complaints and added some kind of shielding or something around the device's speakers. Either way, I was ecstatic!

Conclusions
Now before I finish up this review there was one thing about the Mobis Just Mobile Docking Station that annoyed me to no end. When you turn the PK1 off it resets the volume to mute so when you turn it back on you have to fiddle with the volume again - every time. I'm not sure if this is a feature to protect you from blowing out the speakers but I can tell you that it's incredibly cumbersome to turn the volume up every time you turn on the device. You would figure that for the almost $100USD price tag, it would at least remember your volume settings, but it doesn't.

All in all, this isn't a bad device, if anything it's just a tad bit above mediocre. Personally I feel that it costs a little too much for what it does and how it performs, but for those of you who would like to have some music in your office, I would consider checking out this device or one of the newer Mobis models that were just released, like the PK4 which includes a loudspeaker and subwoofer. :)

Rocco Augusto is a freelance Web Designer who suffers from a borderline obsessive-like passion for gadgets and gizmos. When not working, you can usually find him hiding in the corner as his alter ego, The Mighty Spam Slayer. He currently lives in the Portland, Oregon with his beautiful fiancé and daughter.