Review: gear4 BluFM

gear4 has a good range of FM transmitter products, usually aimed at iPod users looking to play music through their car stereo speakers. While BluFM does play music – albeit not terribly well – this is primarily a handsfree calling system for the mobile and smartphone user.

The device is small, and plugs into the cigarette lighter socket in your car. No setup is required beyond finding a spare FM frequency on your radio then pairing with a Bluetooth phone. Once this is done you can happily leave your phone in your pocket, safe in the knowledge that all calls will be diverted to BluFM.

FM technology is still used here. Rather than playing calls through a small speaker in the device as is usually the case with these portable systems, they are relayed through your car radio. As long as you’ve stored the frequency you’re using in the stereo, you can flip between music and calls at the touch of a button.

The audio quality is superb. For music we had a few problems with muffled sounds, but even that works well in conjunction with a phone, cutting the music when a call comes in. With the more heavily compressed audio of voice calls, however, the sound was perfect, and the tiny inbuilt microphone was also able to relay our voice back to the caller without any of the associated problems such as echo or background noise.

Naturally, if you’re driving in company you might not want your calls blaring out of the speakers, so if music is your primary requirement, the mediocre performance means you should look elsewhere. But if handsfree is what you’re after, BluFM is a winner.

Price: £49.99
Web: www.gear4.com
Verdict: 8

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