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Pounding the table (with sound)
By Sean Carruthers, posted 3/4/2004 12:48:13 PM

For those who travel regularly to give presentations, a notebook computer is essential. Too often, though, presentations lack the kind of zing to actually keep people interested, and while adding sound helps, internal notebook speakers are generally not up to the task and lugging around speakers is cumbersome.

The Omnivox Presenter is a nice way around the problem. Using the same FeONIC technology as the SoundBug, the Presenter is a hockey puck-shaped device that turns any tabletop into a sound-generating surface, no
speakers required.

The sound generated is monaural and its quality depends on the surface you place it on (big boardroom tables will feature richer sound than a small side table, for instance), but it certainly beats the your notebook's piddly little speakers. Because it turns the whole surface into a resonator, even people at the other end of the table will be able to hear the audio.

The Presenter connects using a standard 1/8-inch audio jack, which means it

can be connected to both PC and Mac portables without any special software or adapters. Even better, it's fully compatible with most portable multimedia devices, including portable DVD players, MP3 players, and mobile CD players. It requires one power outlet and the adapter has four interchangeable tips, allowing you to use the Omnivox Presenter in many locations around the world.

We got our hands on this musical puck and gave it a test. It weighs about 850 g (just under 2 lb.), which means it's not exactly lightweight... especially if you have to carry it around in your notebook bag. You don't plug your audio directly into the puck; there's a small box in between that also connects to your power adapter, which means you have to deal with a small tangle of cables, but you can easily wind the whole thing up into a pretty compact space.

The Omnivox Presenter is designed to reproduce sound frequencies between 200 Hz and 16 KHz, at a volume of 80 dB, but the sound does vary based on the surface you place it on. As mentioned, a big boardroom table will give you much better sound than if you placed it on a smaller surface, but it will resonate on almost anything: we got sound out of a cardboard box, the protective plastic carrying case we received the Omnivox in, and even by holding it up to the wall (which means it is also a great way to annoy your neighbours). It won't win any awards for its high fidelity, but the point is that if you have a surface, you have a speaker.

The one big downside with the Presenter is that it doesn't have a volume control; you use the volume control on the item you've plugged it into. With many notebooks, that means fumbling around on your computer desktop if you want to adjust the volume.

True, the price for the Omnivox Presenter is a bit steep, but it offers pretty good value when you consider the alternatives: boring presentations or back-breaking speaker hauling.