DLO TransDock Deluxe Review

Introduction

If you have an older car or truck, you don’t have to envy the new car owners who have built-in iPod docks. You can have your music close at hand in your old vehicle with the new DLO TransDock Deluxe. The TransDock Deluxe is an in-car iPod dock and FM transmitter that plays your iPod through your car stereo, also charging its battery. It also allows you to play videos on bigger LCD screens (if you have them already installed on your car) and charge cell phones or any other device that can be charged through a USB port. Let’s take a good look at DLO TransDock Deluxe.

DLO (Digital Lifestyle Outfitters) provides a series of docking solutions for iPods. For cars, they provide TransDock, TransDock micro and Transdock Deluxe. TransDock micro isn’t a docking station: your iPod is connected to the device through a cable. The regular TransDock and TransDock Deluxe have a docking base for you to directly install your iPod. The Deluxe version comes with a remote control with a steering wheel cradle, mounting and externder arms, exchangeable faceplates, a 6-foot cable and more, items not present on the regular TransDock.

If you are looking for a small, discreet solution for docking your iPod, you will want to look at a different solution. As shown in Figure 1, the TransDock is good looking, but it is big and sits boldly in your vehicle. This may, or may not, suit your tastes.

Figure 1: The TransDock.

As shown in Figure 2, the TransDock Deluxe comes with many different pieces. In fact, when we opened the box, we were amazed, and a bit dismayed at the numer of components.

Figure 2: What’s in the box.

A quick look at the included guide showed us that several of these pieces were adapters, shown in Figure 3, that lets you use the device with different size iPods. There were also two face plates, as shown in Figure 4, you can attach the silver face plate or the black, according to your preferences.

Figure 3: Adapters for different sizes of iPods.

Figure 4: Two face plates.