iRiver AFT 100 FM Transmitter Review

I listen to a lot of podcasts and music in my truck on the way to work. I was using Griffin's iTrip for PSP and it seemed to work fine but I soon became frustrated with it's range so I opened it up and added an external antenna. This improved things dramatically. The antenna mod tripled the iTrip's transmitting range. The iTrip (and the iRiver) is equipped with an automatic power-off feature to conserve batteries while there is no audio signal for 30 seconds. This is a feature I could live without but is a nice addition; until the contacts inside the iTrip's headphone port go bad and it no longer gets a consistent audio signal and keeps shutting itself off.

I can't live without my PSP pushing out MP3's to my car stereo so I decided to do a little more research and find the best reviewed FM transmitter I could. I found numerous sites that said that C. Crane's FMT Digital FM Transmitter was an excellent wireless solution because it is designed primarily for home use and therefore has a long transmitting range. Amazon's reviews don't brag as much as other sites do but overall the C. Crane sounded like the best. The problem is that it cost's about $80 and I didn't want to spend that much.

After more searching, I came across the iRiver AFT 100 Mobile FM Transmitter and it also got good reviews. One advantage the iRiver has over the iTrip is that is uses the car's cigarette lighter/power adapter socket for power instead of AAA batteries. As I said before, the iRiver has the auto power-off feature to prevent draining your car's battery. I have used the iRiver for about a week, to and from work everyday, and I am very pleased. I often have time before going into work when I play some homebrew games and they sound great on my stock factory stereo. Out of the box, the iRiver has better trasmitting range than the iTrip and I don't have to buy AAA batteries for it. Living and working in a medium sized city there are only a few empty radio frequencies. I have tuned both my truck's stereo and my iRiver to these empty frequencies and saved them to the iRiver's 3 presets as well as my radio's presets. The audio quality is as good as FM radio and there are only two spots on my way to work where I get a slight amount of static for a couple of seconds. The iRiver has a much better price than the C. Crane and outperforms the iTrip. I definitely recommend it to those PSP owners who want to play their MP3's in the car.