Having to take your iPod or iPhone out of your pocket to change a track or radio station can be a major annoyance and sometimes downright dangerous. For example; You’re on your bike and you’re approaching a steep hill and you want to change your tunes to something more upbeat. You reach in your pocket, fumble for the iPod,it slips out of your hands and disintegrates into a million pieces as it hits the pavement.

My review begins with a little background, with the Navigate Inline Controllers older cousin the iFM. iFM was an external FM tuner for the iPhone. Introduced in 2005 by Griffin Technology the iFM brought radio reception to early iPods and inline remote control. Apple subsequently introduced radio tuning software that would only work with the iPod radio remote. This eventually drove the iFM off the market.

Not to be deterred Griffin kept plugging along and designed the Navigate inline Controller. The Navigate Inline Controller is designed to work with most iPod and iPhone headphones. The Navigate Inline Controller has a external tuner but for those who prefer to tune stations via their iPod or iPhone a free tuner app (U.S Only) is available via iTunes.

The Navigate Inline Controller has a small display where you can view track or station information. This comes in extremely handy when engaged in outdoor activities. The touch button controls give you easy access to Play, Stop, Pause, Forward, Backward and Scan controls, as well as access to album and artist listings, play lists, shuffle modes and EQ settings. The Navigate Inline Controller can be clipped to your apparel for ease of access. A good example of its “handiness” was when I was mountain biking. While cruising in the woods behind our house a hill was on the horizon. I didn’t want to stop and dig my iPod out from under my gear or try while in motion. I simply glanced down changed the track, cranked the tunes and conquered the hill.

There is a slight degradation in sound due to the connection to the control unit. Anytime you put a connector between lines you lose signal. This is true for all connections. Bearing this in mind i was impressed by the overall music quality. The sound is crisp , clear and vibrant.

We live in a rural area in Canada so FM reception can be spotty at best. My office is in Victoria BC and there are a few great radio stations in the area. My favorite is 100.3 the Q. I found the reception and sound quality very good. There was a little white noise but I find that most portable music players suffer from the same ailment to different degrees. Yes having radio reception does come in handy but let’s be quite honest with 40 GB’s of music on my iPod; FM gets played about 10% of the time.

Overall the Navigate Inline Controller will make an excellent stocking stuffer or present. It has the best display i’ve seen for inline control units, the sound quality is solid, radio reception good and the convenience fact off the charts.