When I hit the road for a long car trip, I always bring my Nano in order to hear some decent music. I get so tired of the same rotation of music on the popular local stations in the city. So I like to spice it up with variety. I hadn’t had much luck however listening to it decently in the car with other FM transmitters in the past. I was still using that archaic method of connecting my iPod to a the cassette tape and then inserting it into my tape deck. But just like 8 tracks, cassette decks in cars are becoming a thing of the past and getting harder and harder to find. So I was extremely excited when I received the Griffin RoadTrip SmartScan and iTrip Auto SmartScan to review. Off to the rental car company I went…

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Features:

Both products aim to make listening to your iPod as painless as ever through an available FM channel. Both the RoadTrip and iTrip Auto feature SmartScan which scans for 3 of the clearest available frequencies. They both also charge the iPod as well. In addition, the cigarette lighter provides power to both units. Each unit promises to deliver pure entertainment. Some of the major differences though between both units is the RoadTrip is made of a flexible steel neck that holds your iPod in place so it doesn’t fall down under your seat, if you let’s say make a short stop in your car. There are also custom mount inserts that come with it that is specific to the iPod that you are using. The iTrip has no mounts and it connects to the ipod via the same port you would normally charge your iPod and is made up of a simple wire that contains the frequency search and connector that inserts into the lighter socket in your car. The RoadTrip also has a line out jack so you can connect the RoadTrip to your car speakers. Now that we have broken down the differences and similarities it’s time to see if they actually worked.

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Installation/Setup:

So I decided that I would try out the iTrip Auto first, the simpler of the two. I first plugged the iTrip into the lighter in my car then I attached my Nano onto the connector. The neat iTrip orange light ring started to glow to show that it was charging. The light is very helpful, because it’s often hard to tell if you fit your plug correctly in to the lighter. The next step was to utilize the SmartScan feature. The RoadTrip and the Autoscan both have a bright display which displays available radio stations and below it are three buttons for scanning and creating preset stations. I didn’t need to look at the instructions in order to figure out how to use either of the devices, it took me about a minute how to figure out how to scan for stations and make presets. This interface is the best i’ve seen yet on a in-car FM transmitter and its brightly lit display works great at night and during the day. Strangely enough though, while both the RoadTrip and the Auto SmartScan have basically the same interface, design and set-up, the quality of the RoadTrip’s buttons seemed sturdier and a little better made than the Auto SmartScan.

The automatic scanning feature brought me 3 channels. Unfortunately when I tried this in Manhattan and I set my car’s radio to each of these stations, I could hear the music from my Nano playing but it had a lot of noise and interference from other FM stations. I decided that I would manually locate a better channel. Once I played around with it for about 10 minutes I found that channel station 88.3 had no interference from other channels and the sound quality was a lot better. As I drove, the sound would go in and out and interference started to act up again. I tried going to different stations manually but none of them sounded any better than the FM station I was already using. So I went back to it.

Next up was the RoadTrip. I plugged in the RoadTrip into the lighter as well and of course right away I was impressed with the flexible steel neck. I mounted my Nano right on to it. It fit very snuggly and I was already liking this better than the iTrip because I felt secure it would not fall or get scratched up in the car near my stick shift. Also there was no fumbling to get to were I could change the frequency it was built right on to the base of the RoadTrip. So again I decided to use the SmartScan to see if I had any better luck finding better channels on this version of the unit. Surprisingly it did find the station I manually located on the iTrip Auto. So that was a relief. It even sounded a bit crisper if I made the sound on the Nano louder. I have to say I was bummed that I didn’t have a car that could take advantage of the line out – output so that I could connect directly to my car speakers. Again a feature only on the RoadTrip. The interference issue came up again as well when I would drive around the city and some of the outerboroughs. Both devices have a wide range of capabilities with current gen ipods and many previous gen ipods, however Griffin’s material doesn’t say whether or not the iPhone is compatible with these new iTrips. I decided to give it a try anyway. My iPhone worked with both the Auto SmartScan and the RoadTrip, which was a nice surprise since there are still very few FM transmitters out there that work with the iPhone.

Conclusion:

Overall my experience with both units was satisfactory. They did the job by locating at least one channel that I could hear my music through with less than constant interference from other stations. I also appreicate that they do the double duty of charging my ipod while I’m out. Sadly being in New York City, it really is very tough to get ANY free FM station that isn’t’ being used. Many colleges use the lower or higher frequencies now a days and just the tall buildings alone don’t make it any easier, along with all the other interferences of cell phones etc. This really isn’t a fault of either product, but rather just the way it is in New York City. If you live in an urban area, my suggestion would be to get the AutoPilot from Griffin instead, if you have an AUX port in your car. This eliminates any worries about interference or searching for free FM stations. I think both the iTrip Auto and RoadTrip would probably do best in on an open country road were free FM stations are more readily available. But for what it’s worth I was very pleased with the RoadTrip especially. I liked the flexible steel and mounting that kept my Nano safe and sturdy. It also allowed me easy access to switch to different songs if I wanted to. In addition I also think it promotes safer driving since it’s within sight. The iTrip Auto I can see people trying to grab it while driving dropping it and getting lost under the car seat. The iTrip Auto Smartscan retails for $79.99 and the RoadTrip SmartScan retails for $99.99.

Conclusion:

The Good: Sound Quality and ease of use for both the iTrip SmartScan and RoadTrip SmartScan.

The Bad: Reception and Interference issues in big cities. Works better in suburban or rural areas.