Home > Consumer Reviews > Ultimate iPhone 3G & 3Gs Fm Transmitter with LCD Display with preset memory

I like the design of this product very much, but it suffers from a fatal flaw. The transmitter is weak. This is in direct conflict with what other reviews say. Also, the unit only broadcasts from 88.1-107.9 -- other websites and the back of the packaging claim its capable of 87.6 to 107.9.

From this, I think I know why the transmitter is so weak. Apparently, this unit originally did not comply with FCC regulations and probably was a very strong transmitter that could do the full FM frequency. At some point, apparently very recently, the FCC probably forced Satechi to remedy this and now it can no longer do 87.6-88.0 and no longer broadcast a signal powerful enough to be received from more than 6 yards out as the FCC requires.

If you look at reviews on Amazon, you'll notice the FM transmitters made by companies you've never heard of all get the high 5 star reviews while the ones made by big name brands (like Monster and Belkin) get absolutely trashed in the reviews. This is because ANY FM transmitter that actually complies with FCC regulations is garbage in a large city with heavy airwave saturation. The cheap chinese ones rarely comply with these regulations cause they constantly change brand names, anyways. The bigger players usually do play the by the rules and their products suffer as a result.

In this case, I suspect Satechi has recently been forced to start playing by the rules based on the transmitter I received. The weak signal and newly restricted (at least it appears to be a new change) frequency range are dead giveaways of this.

Sadly, that makes the unit hard to recommend. It's not Satechi's fault, but this transmitter just sucks in terms of signal strength (which means static *all* the time and an inability to broadcast "over" another signal if you can't find an empty frequency). Great design, but unless you live out in the middle of nowhere you probably won't be able to hear your music without static.

I had heard that FM transmitters are all pretty bad, but I have a G3 iPhone and a car that does not have a method of connecting it directly to the speakers so I thought I'd give it a try. I was surprised and quite pleased with how well this works. The Satechi transmitter is "plug and play." Easy to use. It sounds like music from a radio station - occasionally there's some static- but mostly its reliable and good quality sound. You will need a free radio station, so if you're in a large city, you might not be able to find one. If you're traveling, you might need to change stations occasionally, but its easy to do. I keep it plugged into my charger in my car and simply connect it to my iPhone when I'm in the car. Instant access to all my music.

This is a nicely designed device and easy to install, BUT...
- The signal is simply to weak for decent FM reception in my car. I had terrible static unless I either held this up to the top of the windshield where the antenna is integrated or (for some reason) held my hand on top of the device at all times while driving. Since neither option is not acceptable, the device was pretty much useless. I tried multiple frequencies - same issue.
- When the unit figures the station you selected has intermittent interference, it tries to automatically retune itself to a different frequency. This happens w/o control or warning. Kind of an issue when you're driving and all of the sudden this thing keeps changing frequency.

I ended up returning the unit and bought a small attachable speaker for my iPhone, which solved my problem of listening to audiobooks in my car.

Got the unit just in time to go on a long driving trip. Worked fine out of the box. Nothing's perfect but this is far better than a couple of others I've tried. Even though the info says it's for the 3GS iPhone, my original iPhone worked very well.

The good:

- I like the wide range of tuning frequencies.
- It sounds great using an original iPhone into the car's FM tuner

The troublesome:

- The big button on the left hand side is random. Supposed to remember the latest tuning, but it is completely random. Goes back to 88.1 and 88.6 all the time. It's a good idea and I could have used it often, but it didn't work for me.
- On a couple of occasions, just touching the unit - something like a static charge release - would reset the tuning to 88.1. Once I unplugged it from the iPhone and re installed all was well and I could handle the unit at will.

Suggestions to another user:

- The signal strength in the car is much improved when the unit is plugged into the power for recharging the iPhone. I use it that way all the time.

Would I recommend the unit to another person? A big yes, with the warning that the big button on the left may well be useless.

I purchased this product after reading the previous reviews here. But, despite all the location constraint and interference, this product does not deliver the quality sound for the price.

Pros
- Good Build Quality
- A stereo sound

Cons
- Cannot extract the best output like a audio cassette adapter which is available in walmart for $12
- Always hit by interference. Maybe peacfully playing without intereference for a while.