Hands-on with Bose's SoundDock Portable, Wave music system DAB and MusicMonitor

'It sounds very good, but it's very expensive' tends to be Crave's verdict on Bose kit, and its latest releases are no exception. Of most interest to us at Bose's recent touch-and-try session was the new iPod dock, the Bose SoundDock Portable.

It's a redesign of the well-received original Bose SoundDock, but with a slimmer design and a re-chargeable battery. Bose says that you can get 24 hours of life out of the battery at 'normal listening levels', although this reduces to three if you turn the speakers up to full volume.

The innards have been tweaked, with new 'neodymium transducers', and there's an aux input at the back for iPod Shuffles, or even -- God forbid -- an MP3 player from another manufacturer.

There's no mistaking that years of painstaking, patented research has gone into the SoundDock Portable, but much to the dismay of Bose's MD, Crave's favourite feature is the least techie part of the whole shebang -- the rotating iPod dock itself at the front, which glides away with a lovely smooth action when you tap it gently. How does it sound? Good, but it is very expensive at £279, to be precise. -Jason Jenkins

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