There's a vast range of iPod accessories out there these days, making choosing a quality device a lot harder than it used to be. In my evaluation I stuck to the mainstream brands, and with the Logitech mm50 it seems to have paid off.

I will add to the previous reviewers here, rather than repeating many items in-depth. I'll also comment on the overall usability of the dock.

So: sound. Sound quality and volume is good enough to feel that I've made the right choice - we don't play music overly loud, and in the range and type of music that we use it with, it comfortably produces quite a rich sound to fill whichever room we're in. Some other reviews comment on lack of volume in a loud party, but we haven't tried this yet.

Build quality is very good: the system feels absolutely solid, and the rotate-out feet let it stand steadily. It might push about in everyday use (eg. plugging in mains, cradling iPod), but since it's meant to be a portable system, I wouldn't want it to be immobile!

Speaking of portability - this is a bonus of choosing this system over many others I looked at. The system lives on the bedside table, where we can plug in an iPod for listening to music at night, and charging overnight. However, if we're in another room during the weekend, we simply unplug the power lead and carry the dock to wherever we are; and it can be sat on any surface, continuing to play music for as long as required. The solid, stable and slim construction means it can be sat about anywhere, with no worries as to balancing, speaker direction, etc, and the battery completely negates the deliberation on whether it's worth unplugging the power supply to bring it into the other room, etc. etc. etc. The battery life is pitched at 8 hours; for us, it's been long enough that it's never run out while we've been listening to it.

Finally: the iPod mount fit. There are two blanks for different size iPods in the box; I haven't even looked at them, because we have two different iPods, and I don't want to have to remove the blank each time. My girlfriend has a Nano, and I have a 5G 30Gb (or 5.5G - with longer battery life). Both have Silicone skins, which, for some reason, most manufacturers refuse to acknowledge, meaning you have to remove your iPod from the skin (another chore) before fitting to the accessory. Well, it's not so bad, because:

The Nano, with it's Silicone skin left on, fits pretty well in the empty (with no inserts) cradle: the bottom connector still makes a good firm contact, despite the thickness of the skin, and co-incidentally, the belt-clip-mount on the back of our silicone case rests gently against the back of the cradle, so the Nano doesn't move when using the controls (other reviews complain of the un-cased Nano flexing backwards when trying to use the controls).

The 5G doesn't fit with the skin in place; the edges of the empty cradle appear to be matched to the 5G's width, and so, with the skin in place, it's too tight!

Rather than take the skin off, I've tried using the 3.5mm connector at the back (I don't think the lead was supplied) for a simple audio connection. This sounds fine, but the dock turns off after a couple of minutes. I haven't read the manual yet, so there might be a button to prevent it going into powersave if nothing's plugged into the dock; I would have thought it would have detected a stereo signal on the alternative input, and stayed on, however. Incidentally, the dock DOES detect your iPod being switched on/off when cradled, and powers on/off accordingly.

The mm50 is now discontinued as far as I know, and replaced with the mm60, which seems more of a clock-radio construction, than portable speakers. Quality is reputed to be worse in exchange for functions, hence I decided to try for the mm50 in any case. I did find one via shopping search engines - there are end-of-line discounts available - and I'm perfectly happy with it.