2. Saitek A-250: Your Bluetooth Radio!

The A-250 is more imposing, resembling a biodesigned radio/cassette player, and much less easy to slip into a (small) bag or pack. It is fully portable, powered by four batteries or AC, but it'll be difficult to carry it around with you everywhere like the A-200. As with its little brother, the A-250 can serve as a sound output system for an audio player (or any other audio source) via a line input with a 1/8" jack. But what makes it special is the inclusion of a Bluetooth transceiver. It comes with a USB Bluetooth adapter, so all you do is plug it into a port on your PC for it to be recognized and start operating - no driver is needed. The adapter is recognized as a USB Bluetooth headphone set, and will coexist with any sound card with no problem.

The A-250 itself has a small LCD display that indicates battery level, Bluetooth operability, and volume level. On/off is via a button, with two others for adjusting the volume and three more for Play and Forward/Reverse. It's actually preferable to use Windows Media Player to operate them; you can use other player applications, but the controls on the A-250 generally don't work if you do.

The Bluetooth USB module appears under USB Controllers and under Audio Sound Controllers

Ideally you should use Windows Media Player; it's perfectly suited to the A-250.

The Bluetooth connection is considered a headphone jack, so you can use any audio source using WAV or your CD or DVD player

Saitek A-250 Technical Characteristics

Bass power output : 3 W Satellite power output : 2 x 1.5 W Inputs : 1 line Headphone jack : none Satellites : 1" (2.5 cm) microdrives Subwoofer : 2.8" (7 cm) woofer Power supply : 4 LR06 (AA) batteries or AC (adapter supplied) Dimensions : 13.8" x 3.3" x 4.9" (350 mm x 85 mm x 125 mm)