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Tekkeon NavDock for iPod
Browse your iPod on the big screen!
Created: 04/02/2009 Updated: 04/03/2009 Authors: Staff

Tekkeon's NavDock is a home media center all wrapped up into an iPod dock. The NavDock lets you navigate your iPod through an on-screen menu to play videos, photos, and music on a connected standard definition television.

NavDock browses directly through your iPod menus, so finding and playing music and videos is easy. And you can use the 16-button remote to adjust or mute volume, shuffle, repeat or skip songs, and fast forward or rewind through music or videos. The remote offers a 5-way navigation pad and quick keys that you jump directly to the videos, photos, music, or settings menus.

And the damn thing isn't even that expensive. But it's also not perfect. If you want to connect your iPod to your TV, should you splurge and get an Apple TV, buy a cheap $5 AV iPod cable or get the NavDock? Let's find out.

Requirements:

    • iPod mini; iPod nano 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G; iPod classic 4G, 5G, 5.5G, 6G; iPod touch 1G, 2G
    • TV with RCA cable inputs and/or S-Video
NERD NOTE: Tekkeon, Inc. is a privately held company with headquarters in Tustin, California, and ISO-certified factories in China and Taiwan.
 
 

Compatibility

The Tekkeon NavDock is very compatible. When buying a dock for your iPod, the first thing you should investigate is model compatibility. Not every dock works with every iPod... especially when it comes to video. But the Tekkeon NavDock will work with all non-video iPods as well as with most video iPods including the iPod Touch (a complete list of compatible iPod models is at the beginning of this review). There aren't many iPod video docks that are compatible with the iPod Touch. So if you own an iPod Touch, then the Tekkeon NavDock is the dock for you.

navdocknavdock

The NavDock's compatibility isn't just limited to iPods. The NavDock is multilingual. You can change the language of the NavDock's on-screen menus to English, Japanese, and Spanish. And there's a NTSC/PAL switch on the back of the unit. So if you travel between NTSC and PAL locations, then this switch will be of great interest to you and the NavDock will probably frequently find its way into your luggage.

navdock

So let's review: multiple iPods, multiple languages and multiple video output standards. Like we said, the NavDock is very compatible.

 
 

Remote

The Tekkeon NavDock has an awesome16-button remote that allows you to adjust or mute volume, shuffle, repeat or skip songs, and fast forward or rewind through music or videos. The remote offers a 5-way navigation pad and quick keys that enable you to jump directly to your videos, photos, music or settings.

navdock

Here's a complete list of the NavDock's remote control functionality:

    • One-touch mode selector for videos, photos, music, and settings
    • Five-way navigation pad
    • Home key
    • Volume control
    • Mute
    • Play/pause
    • Skip next/back
    • Fast forward/backward
    • Shuffle
    • Repeat
 
 

Beautiful menus, but...

Besides having a great remote, what really sets the Tekkeon NavDock well beyond Apple's video dock is the menu navigation. The Tekkeon NavDock has a fantastic menu interface. Cheaper iPod video docks either don't have any on-screen menu navigation or their menus look like dried out donkey crap. Not the Tekkeon NavDock. The NavDock has beautiful menus that rival the Apple TV's interface and allow you to easily navigate the contents of your iPod in style.

navdocknavdock
navdock

The NavDock's interface is both aesthetically pleasing and easy to read, but there's a functionally issue. Displaying album art will make the NavDock act slightly sluggish, especially if you have giant high-resolution album artwork attached to your music and video files. The NavDock sometimes needs a couple seconds to buffer these image files and may make your navigation a tad slow. What does that mean exactly? You might see a 1-2 second pause between songs when using the NavDock so album artwork can be loaded.

Songs with no album art will never get paused. But don't go deleting all your album artwork in iTunes just yet. If you are really seeing a speed issue, you can turn off the NavDock's album art feature altogether. An unglamorous wad of text will tell you what's currently playing on your iPod. But if this is a deal breaker for you, you should probably just cough up the extra cash and buy an Apple TV.

 
 

Picture & Sound Quality

In general, both your picture and sound quality will greatly depend on the original quality of your media files on your iPod. If you don't already own a video iPod dock or an Apple TV, you are probably used to watching movies on your iPod's small screen. So a 320 x 240 movie that looks great on your iPod might look pretty pixilated and stretched out on the big screen. If you usually rip DVDs to MP4 files using Handbrake, you might want to up the quality and pixel size. Handbrake has plenty of presets so be sure to experiment on a setting that will give you a file that will look good on both your iPod and TV.

 
 

Photos

The NavDock will also display photo sideshows using the photos on your iPod. But you will have to queue up the slide show using your iPod and not the NavDock's remote. Honestly, it's a little awkward. But awkward photo navigation by video iPod docks is a limitation of Apple's iPod firmware. The iPod doesn't have the ability to send fancy thumbnails to 3rd party docks and other video hardware yet.

Also, the photos feature is not completely compatible with the iPod Touch. But there is a work-around. iPod Touch users can setup a slide show on the iPod Touch's screen and mirror the output through the NavDock. It's an extra step, but it works.

navdock

 
 

Overall Pros and Cons

Pros & Things to Be Excited About:

  • 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 & 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.
 
 

navdockFinal Thoughts

What makes the Tekkeon NavDock special is its interface combined with its ability to work with the most recent iPod classic, iPod nano, and iPod touch models, as well as earlier iPods. But the NavDock isn't completely glitch free. Sometimes you may experience a communication failure which may require you to re-docking your iPod.

navdockOverall, the Tekkeon NavDock is a good middle ground between a cheap $5 iPod AV and an Apple TV. Tekkeon's NavDock isn't perfect, but it's better than having the entire family huddle around your iPod for movie night.

Technical Details

  • Compatibility: iPod mini; iPod nano 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G; iPod classic 4G, 5G, 5.5G, 6G; iPod touch 1G, 2G
  • Navigate your iPod through an on-TV menu to play videos, photos, and music on a connected television
  • "Now Playing" screen with album art, song info, and status bar
  • Enjoy complete remote control of your iPod
  • iPod dock charges your iPod while docked
  • Dimensions: 10.5 x 6.7 x 3 inches ; 5 pounds
  • Weight: 2 pounds


This item is available for purchase from Amazon.com

Tekkeon creates inventive personal electronic device accessories that are both simple to use and useful. Tekkeon, Inc. is a privately held company with its international headquarters in Tustin, California. Tekkeon products are be available through major retail and online stores..

For more information, check out: http://www.tekkeon.com

Rating:
Requirements:
most model iPods, standard definition TV
Manufacturer:
Tekkeon
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