Your cat/dog/ferret may get peeved if it detects their thermal temperature and follows it about playing drum 'n bass, but I would love a roving music tank that I could control using any Wi-Fi or Bluetooth enabled device. Mint claims its Mintpad is the perfect partner for the Music Tank, but you can control it with your PC if you so desire.

If it ever comes up against the effeminate Sony Rolly, our money is on the Mint Robot Music Tank. Just look at those tracks! [Mint Pass via DVICE]

The Price:

$130

The Verdict:

It's good! We had three issues with the first one: wireless interference, the inability to adjust the volume from the computer when using the USB wireless audio dongle, and the price. To start, it's $130, down from $150, and our volume changes on the MacBook Pro transferred directly over the air to volume changes in the player.

If you're talking sound quality, the Mint Studio is decent. This is more about the convenience of wireless speakers than having a really great sounding set of speakers. For $130, you get a not-too-shabby set that can also act as an iPod dock. It's definitely better than the speakers you have in your laptop, so that's already an upgrade.

Lastly, the wireless interference is reduced by hopping over two channels instead of just one, which should help to curb many problems unless you have a lot of wireless laptops using the same frequency. Also, 802.11n laptops and routers are pretty much de facto since we reviewed the previous Mint, so you shouldn't see any interference if you're using the 5GHz channel for your N traffic.

One bonus feature introduced in the Mint Studio is the ability to support three different units from one transmitting laptop. We tested this in our house, with the laptop source and USB transmitter on the first floor, and one unit on each of the three floors. It was able to reach all three floors with zero audible loss, which is pretty great, and within its household operating range (with walls and floors) of 100 feet.

And in case there was any confusion, it's not waterproof—we just enjoy planting it on a shelf outside the shower and streaming music while we bathe. It allows us to keep our laptops out of splash distance too.

It also still supports line-in and still acts like an iPod/iPhone dock, and works fine in those respects too. With the low price and improved featureset, I think the Mint Studio is a pretty good buy for people who want cheap multi-room audio that can also function as an iPod dock. [Mint]

Fixed interference issues and remote volume control from a computer

Cheap way to get wireless streaming music throughout your house

Sound quality isn't astounding

The Price: $159 with $20 promo code (DS220)

The Verdict: Not too bad. The speakers themselves are adequate, though not as good as their previous wireless iPod dock effort. The 220 functions decently well as an iPod dock, but what you really want this for is its wireless speaker functions.

Imagine plugging in the USB dongle to your laptop—which doesn't have very good speakers—and beaming all audio to the wireless unit across the room. It's a fairly elegant solution to get around the fact that your laptop has less than optimal speakers and aren't easy to substitute by plugging into better ones when you're lounging on the couch.

The only note we have is that the 2.4GHz frequency the dongle uses to communicate is prone to interference, and if you use it on your laptop, you're going to get some intermittent audio. Everything was fine when we worked off an Ethernet connection, but when we fired up our wireless on the laptop, you could definitely tell some interference was going on when music keeps dropping out. Also (on at least the Mac version) you can't control volume via your computer; you have to use the wireless remote.

In the end, $159 isn't too steep a price to pay for wireless speakers that you can easily sync up to your laptop. If they'd fix the wireless interference and add volume control on your computer, we'd be able to recommend this fully. [Mint]

After adjusting the bass level with the Mondo Mint Audio Control suite over USB (it comes set really bass heavy) the Mint sounded pretty darn good. Since we don't have the 100 docks Mark has to compare it to, we'd have to say the audio quality (even when streaming over wireless) was good enough to compare to a decent set of bookshelf speakers. It does have a nice remote, though.

The Mint definitely looks classy—as classy as an iPod dock can look. The buttons on the front of both docks aren't flimsy, and the speaker connections in back are sturdy as well. The solid and smooth (it slides around well on carpet) speakers combined with the sturdy construction of the docks themselves goes a long way into justifying the $349 price.

Whether the Mondo Mint is competitive compared to other $349 iPod docks is still up in the air, but the combination of wireless audio, the decent assortment of inputs and the pretty decent sound quality will make this a good buy either way.

Product Page [Mondo Mint]

The festive colors of the Chocolate hit stores today for $99... after $50 mail-in rebate and two-year contract with Verizon Wireless. Spread some Christmas cheer and give the gift of a wildly over-hyped cellphone. – Nicholas Deleon

Cherry [Verizon Wireless]

Mint [Verizon Wireless via SlashPhone.com]