I purchased several docking units for my IPad, IPod & IPhone and had to return them all. Needless to say I wasted a lot of time & money returning items. I also needed this item to have speakers & play music with great sound quality. Finally Haier has met those expectations. I received this item yesterday and the first thing I needed to do was to see if it was compatible with apple productions because all of the other units were not. I was happy to see that it worked. So if you are looking for a product to do these things this is your item. Haier "The View" Docking System for iPad/iPhone/iPod
We bought the Haier Docking system specifically as an audio/video unit for a new iPad 2 with landscape capability for our kitchen. Since the connector is universal across Apple products, I figured that in the worst case the thinner iPad 2 would have to be "padded" somehow to fit properly. Unpacking und setup were easy and pretty obvious. We had initial problems with placement of the iPad 2 into the connector receptors (both horizontal and vertical), but have figured out by now the best way to hold the iPad 2 to make sure the connector seats properly. In Portrait mode (vertically), the mating connector at the bottom of the Haier unit is spring loaded and it takes a bit of practice to get it matched up to iPad 2, but once placed properly, the iPad sits reasonably solid on the dock. In landscape mode (horizontally) the connector is on the right side. Even though this connector is not spring loaded, it again takes a bit of practice to line it up properly with the female connector of the iPad 2. This is mostly because the Haier dock is indeed designed as a dock for the original (bigger) iPad and/or smaller iPod units. The thinner iPad 2 sits somewhat skewed and loose in the dock in horizontal mode. It is, however, pretty useable despite the loose fit and we decided against a home made padding setup to make it fit more solidly. Using the touch screen in landscape mode is no problem, but I would not recommend trying to type long essays on the touch screen keyboard in this position (it is too loose and too vertical for comfort). We matched a bluetooth keyboard to our setup for email, web browsing, etc which also comes in handy as a "remote" for iPad AV control (since the included remote for the Haier dock seems to be more designed for iPods and is pretty unresponsive for us). We also downloaded the free Haier app that works as an alarm clock etc, but after playing around with it for a while decided against its use. It is clearly designed for the smaller iPod screen only and does not offer us anything that we need.
Pro's: Pretty decent sound system. Component video out and mp3 player audio in (although we have not tried these two features yet). Universal dock for anything i
Con's: The remote included with the Haier dock is pretty unresponsive and we find it virtually useless. No audio out connector on the dock, so the video hook up through component cables has to use the iPad Audio Out line (maybe that is the reason why the Video Out feature only works with the bottom connector in Portrait mode (mounted vertically) per Haier's manual). And obviously the geek in me had wished for a USB port on the dock, emulating the expensive Apple "camera adapter"
The sound quality is horrible. You would think having an Ipad and a long list of music/videos the quality of the sound would be half way decent in a docking station. Not this one. The app. is cheesy and it doesnt preform its jobs either. Overall it is pretty crappy.
The unit itself is OK but does not work very well with the Ipad 2. I thought the first unit was broken actually as the bottom port for docking it in portrait mode is movable. I returned & replaced it only to find out that port is for whatever reason supposed to be movable. With that being the case it's very difficult to get the Ipad 2 docked to it. The bottom port is the only port that works for video out & that is one of the main reasons we chose this unit. Can dock the Ipad 2 in landscape mode a little easier, but since the unit is not really designed for the 2nd generation, it's really not a good fit & was concerned it would end up damaging the port on the Ipad 2 itself. Sound quality was OK. Remote control is very cheap & buttons tend to stick. Ended up returning the 2nd unit as well & will wait for something else to become available designed for Ipad 2 that includes video out option. If you're using for 1st generation Ipad or other apple devices it's probably OK as long as you don't mind the sound quality & cheap remote.
Got to say right off that this is a well built unit. It has a hefty weight and quality that surprised me upon first opening the box. It was easy to set up and the sound was everything I had hoped for. I had several disappointments though. First, the remote did not respond very well. I invested $40 dollars for some component cables and hooked it up to my Samsung HD LED TV per instructions. However, the video out feature was difficult to get to switch to out and takes some playing around with to get it to work. It did play my regular itune installed videos but the sound came fron the unit and not the TV. Strangely, it would not play the iPod 4th generation camera created videos but would display the camera's own snapshots (in slideshow mode only). Still, if you are looking for a docking unit that recharges Apple's iPod/iPad line and has great sound, then this is a good unit. I wouldn't buy it for the video out feature though I guess you could justify it if all you wanted was to display your snapshots on TV. For playing videos internally, the landscape mount is a real plus.
After hemming and hawing for a few weeks I finally decided to give this one a go. I was just looking for a docking unit that
a.) charged while it was in use
b.) had decent speakers (i like good sound but didn't need these to be INSANELY awesome)
c.) displayed both portrait and landscape.
d.) had an appealing, well built base.
e.) bonus points for being able to connect to the tv.
I thought this lil guy had it all. But I'll be honest.... the sound is just OK. When I turn up the volume, the sound begins to distort - no matter what the volume is on the iPad itself. The unit advertises the subwoofers as if they were substantial, but I found them lacking. And when I went to connect the unit to my television I was unable to make the connection work. I ended up keeping it out of sheer laziness, but probably should have returned it and saved my money for something nicer.'
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