Bosch Power Box and iPod Dock: iPhone/iPod Accessory Review

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iPhone/iPod Accessory Review: Bosch Power Box and iPod Dock
Reviewed by: Cyprian Peters
-Official website
Price: Power Box: ~$180
Dock: $50

You may know Bosch as the makers of a variety of tools to use on the job site. What may be less well-known is that they also make one of the, if not the best job site radio/CD player/iPod capable, music and charging station. This thing is awesome. It weighs upwards of 20 pounds but for good reason as you’ll see shortly.

First off, I’m a student, which means I work full-time for 4 months of the year and my summer job for the last 4 years happens to be roofing houses. As any construction worker will tell you, having music on makes the day go by way faster as well as making work more enjoyable. When you’re on a roof or doing other construction, things are prone to getting extrememly dirty. Whether it’s dust, dirt, or in my case, tar, it’s tricky to keep things clean. Bosch has taken this into consideration in the design of this unit and all the buttons and ports are sealed to protect from dust and dirt. The outside of the unit has a roll cage built into it which Bosch claims will protect it from falls of up to 10ft. In the past 4 summers, I’ve been through quite a few radio’s, whether stuff falls on them or they fall off the roof. A one storey fall is enough to do most radio’s in. I haven’t dropped this unit but I woulnd’t be surprised if it survived a one storey fall! This thing is built to get abused.

The Power Box is shaped like a cube, with every side performing a different function. On the top is a handle, which makes carrying it around really easy! It also has a built in antenna that picks up the radio very well. One side has a heavy duty power cord and 4 different pieces of plastic to loop the cord around to pack it up tidily. Also on this side is an AUX-in port and a car cigarette lighter style plug to charge cell phone’s, etc. Both of these are covered by removable rubber plugs to keep them clean. This is also where the iPod dock attaches, but more on that later.

One of the big things on a construction site is getting power. Ofter, you’ll only have one set of 2 plugs available. For me, the compressor is always taking up one, and then usually the radio goes in the other one. Then if you need to use other power tools, you wind up having to unplug the radio, run an extension cord from the ground, basically a big hassle. The Power Box comes equipped with not one or two, but 4 power outlets, which means you have enough power to do almost anything!

The back of the Power Box has a charging cubby to charge any Bosch power tool batteries. You could even run the unit off the battery without plugging it in! This is amazingly handy on the job since you dont need to plug in a separate charger somewhere else on the site. You can do basically everything you need to from one place.

Since the primary function of this unit is a radio, it’s probably important to know what it sounds like and how it functions. It’s not the best sounding unit I’ve ever heard, but it would definitely be the best sounding thing I would have on the jobsite with me. It can get plenty loud to hear from across a house or from the other side of the roof in my case. It has pretty decent bass as well. Enough to annoy the next door neighbors!

The front has a CD drawer as well that opens up. It has an AM/FM radio with 10 and 20 presets respectively. There are preset EQ’s that you can adjust to your liking as well as a ‘Bosch Sound’ button that really amps up the sound. It even comes with a little remote that you can clip onto your toolbelt and change the volume, mode, and play/pause control for a CD. It also has a big red mute button when you need instant quiet. Quite a handy thing to have on you so you don’t need to be running back and forth to the unit all the time!

Lastly, this unit has an optional iPod dock that is made for it as well. It is $50 and works quite nicely. Unfortunately, you can’t control your iPod from the remote or from the unit, without actually touching the iPod itself. Although this kind of sucks, I really don’t mind, since when you’re working construction your hands are usually quite dirty to begin with and I wouldn’t want to be touching my expensive iPod anyways. The dock is white and has a locking mechanism so once your iPod is in there, it’s not going to get dirty and it will be well protected. It attaches to the AUX in and the 12V plug. It basically acts as the AUX in if you were to connect a separate cable but also protects your iPod. It comes with multiple attachments for different iPod models. Unfortunately, the dock is a tiny bit too small for the iPod touch or iPhone, however, using an AUX-in cable with a good protective case, will get you the same result. If you need to protect your iPod against work, I would definitely recommend this dock.

Overall, this unit is pretty incredible. You get so much functionality out of it that it is worth so much more than just a radio! It will require a bit of cash to get it but it is a really good investment and it’s almost guaranteed to last you much longer than your standard radio, which has no protection. I’m giving this a 10/10 simply because I haven’t seen anything better in this category that will protect as well and give all around functionality on the jobsite.

Score:
10/10

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