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This ring has three buttons – volume up, power, and volume down – as well as a blue light that shines through plastic between them when the power’s on.Īlso like iPulse, the unit features an external audio input and power input (here, both on its bottom, next to three rubber stabilizing feet), but there’s no output to a separate subwoofer, and no option to use either integrated or removable batteries as an option. Like iPulse, iSphere features a dark gray plastic volume and power control ring on its front. At the bottom of the cup is ZipConnect’s headphone cord, which plugs into the top of any iPod (or bottom of the iPod nano), then retracts to a minimal length underneath the iPod. One medium-sized detachable hard plastic piece fits into the cup to provide a sort of backing for an iPod to stand up, and Sharper Image also includes a small insert sized to prop up the smaller iPod shuffle instead. A vent on the bottom lets the speakers breathe.Ī recessed dark gray plastic cup at the top appears from a distance to be an iPod dock, but doesn’t really hold the iPod as much as give it a place to sit. Black and silver speakers are mounted behind matching silver mesh grilles in a triangular fashion, left and right channels on the front, with a bass-filling subwoofer (the. It is 7.5 inches in diameter and weighs 2.5 pounds, which makes it a little larger than the footprint of a typical clock radio, minus the clock and radio. ISphere is the more broadly appealing of the two speaker systems, designed as a glossy white plastic globe with 2.1 channels of sound. These ZipConnects now sell separately for $9.95 a piece, down from a more objectionable $19.95, and should be considered mandatory if you want to charge your iPod and pull music from its bottom rather than its top. If you want a better experience, you have to buy an optional ZipConnect accessory – either Dock Connector (iPod/iPod mini/iPod nano) or USB (iPod shuffle). Like iPulse, it comes with the company’s only universal “ZipConnect” unit, a detachable white box with a retractable headphone jack plug – a less than optimal way to connect an iPod for listening. Though marketed primarily to iPod owners, iSphere is sold by default as cross-compatible with virtually any small music player. This review covers iSphere, while a separate review covers iPulse. Now the iPod gets two such exclusives – speaker systems called the iSphere ZipConnect Speaker System($149.95) and iPulse ZipConnect Speakers with Colorsync LED ($129.95). But Sharper Image stuck with its pricing and selection formula, and expanded it to include exclusive “Sharper Image Design” items you can’t buy anywhere else.
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The prices were high, but the industrial design of the products was generally impeccable, and readers had every reason to believe that someone smart was selecting each catalog’s offerings.īy the mid-1990’s, catalog and Internet mail-order business was common, and prices became increasingly competitive. Its mail order catalogs were always packed with photographs of high-tech gadgets – generally touted as hand-selected, and best of breed. Sharper Image had a good thing going in the 1980s and early 1990s.