You may or may not have read our review of the Saitek Laptop Subwoofer posted early last month. Creative have a similar offering in the form of the TravelSound Notebook 500 Speakers, a set of portable stereo speakers with plenty of oomph and compatibility with pretty much anything that has an audio out port.
The TravelSound Notebook 500 speakers are not designed to act as a subwoofer, or as a supplement to existing laptop speakers even though with a few laptops they would work that way. Creative have developed a set of stereo speakers which completely replace your tinny laptop speakers by clipping to the lip of the laptop lid, plugging into your audio out and drawing power from a spare USB port. The resulting sound quality is excellent for such a compact, low-cost solution and the TravelSound Notebook 500 speakers themselves are beautifully manufactured with plenty of little touches to make them worth every penny.
The speaker set comes bundled with 4 AAA batteries and a battery pack to put them in, letting you power them independent from any USB port or mains power supply. This is great for adding additional speakers to an MP3 player to entertain a few friends on the go and also means you can save that precious laptop battery power. The TravelSound Notebook 500 speakers also support a mains power supply, although an adaptor is not included for obvious reasons (we think) - why put up the price to bundle a power adaptor most people are not going to use with the "portable" speakers? Creative boast up to 30 hours playback time on a single set of 4 AAA batteries, we haven't tested this because the USB power does the trick nicely without the cable overheating we experienced with Saiteks Notebook Subwoofer.
Alongside the power options the TravelSound Notebook 500 includes a very nifty carry-case with an internal pocket for stowing the USB/Audio cables and possible the battery pack if you want to squeeze it in there. A draw string both holds the case shut and gives you a handle to carry it around with.
The speakers themselves boast a power button, volume control, powered subwoofer output, DC power input, USB power input, line in, a spring clip and a foldable stand.
Because of the power options the TravelSound Notebook 500 speakers are ideal for almost any on-the-road application and can even be used around the house on the mains power. However the primary goal of the TravelSound Notebook 500 speakers is to provide far better sound to a laptop computer, something which is reflected in its unique but slightly flawed design. The stand at the back of the speakers flips down and boasts a small spring clip which can be folded out and used to secure the TravelSound Notebook 500 speakers to the lid of a laptop. Unfortunately the clip is not perfect and was a little loose on the Toshiba A60 we tested it on, unfortunately it also failed to clip onto an iiyama ProLite TFT monitor which was slightly too thick for the clip to handle. However, by flipping down the stand and setting the TravelSound Notebook 500 down, it fit snugly on the base just below the screen giving much clearer and louder sound than the internal speakers of the screen could deliver.
The pearly white design of the TravelSound Notebook 500 speakers give them the distinct look of an Apple accessory and I think they would look great attached to a Powerbook or, in fact, any notebook. Overall the TravelSound Notebook 500 speakers are beautifully designed, failing only in the clip department and even then only on some notebooks and TFT desktop monitors. The whole unit is sturdily built, magnetically shielded and even has a dual-colour LED (blue/amber) to denote whether it is being powered by USB, batteries or a mains adaptor.
