I looked at many portable speakers and this one was the best as far as also being the storage of the ipod and protecting it, two speakers, portable size, and not to be

Because of its design, I also use it as an external speaker with my laptop to boost the volume and quality when my family watches movies

The speaker isn't very powerful (hard to hear over the crashing waves on a windy day at the beach), and it's bulkier than I expected.

Then, at about 2 months the speaker stopped working right, crackling loudly

The speakers are plenty loud, but at the highest level do make the sound a little distorted.