I had an Ipod for around a year before I decided I wanted an FM transmitter for my car, so I brought a very cheap one off ebay which plugged into the cig lighter, but I got fed up of having to put it into the lighter socket each time I wanted to play my ipod in the car, so I decided it would have another look on ebay and I came across the itrip. It cost me roughly £15 delivered and came from USA off Ebay.

When I purchased the itrip it was illegal to use them in the UK apparently although I was never stopped and a police officer even saw me using it, but they didn’t care. Although I believe it is now legal to use these as they are only low powered broadcasters.

There are a two types of itrip, one that plugs into the headphone socket and one that plugs into the dock on the bottom of the ipod. Mine is the second.

The itrip (the later ones with the dock connectors) plugs into the bottom of the itrip and uses the battery power from the Ipod. The itrip powers up when you start playing a song on your Ipod, you will then have to choose a frequency, I choose 88.5 which in my car picks up another radio station but is very fuzzy, but as soon as the itrip loads up it switches to what is playing on the ipod.

The quality is very good considering it is coming over the radio, although if I want to have my music up very load I choose Cd’s over my ipod/itrip as it’s just that bit clearer, but I don’t think many people have their music up as high as mine ;)

One of itrips features (something not found on any other transmitters) is selectable LX or DX modes of broadcasting, which allows you to adjust for the absolute best possible audio under real-world conditions. Even in large cities with lots of radio stations, itrip's DX Mode delivers a low background noise level so it’s much clearer. Information on how to use LX and DX features are in the instructions that you get with the itrip.

So with the itrip getting it’s power from the ipod you may think that the ipod will run out of battery very quickly, that’s what I thought, although it really doesn’t seem to effect it that much, obviously yes it does reduce it a bit but not as much as you would expect. Although I have to do some very long journeys at times, so I decided to buy the Griffin ‘Powerjolt’ also available on ebay at a reasonably price, this plugs into the bottom of the itrip in a special socket which is made just for the powerjolt (note: This is only available on the later itrips that use the dock connection I believe), so you can charge your ipod whilst in the car whilst you are listening via the itrip. It has been excellent well worth getting for under £10 delivered.

Overall I believe the itrip is the best FM transmitter solution you will get for your ipod. Buy it :)