Wireless Gateway music to your ears

The Life: At just Dh184, Blackberry's Music Gateway - which lets you play your smartphone's music library through your stereo - is a must-buy.

The BlackBerry Music Gateway. Courtesy Research In Motion

However smart your smartphone, it is unlikely to match your home stereo in terms of playing back music.

Despite major advances in hardware, the tiny dimensions of a mobile phone mean its audio playback will always be dwarfed by larger stereo speakers.

Gadgets such as the BlackBerry Music Gateway eliminate this problem by acting as a bridge between your smartphone and stereo.

The device wirelessly receives music played on your mobile phone, and pumps it through your stereo via an audio lead. So instead of playing music back through your puny smartphone, you can connect with the biggest speakers in the house.

The Music Gateway is available in the UAE for just Dh184 (US$50), and is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Although made by BlackBerry, the device works with most Bluetooth-enabled smartphones and tablets, including Apple and Android devices.

The National tested the product using iPhone 4S, BlackBerry Bold and Sony Xperia Ion smartphones, as well as an iPad tablet. All connected easily with the Music Gateway, and the quality of the music playback was perfect.

When connected, the smartphone or tablet must remain in range of the Music Gateway's Bluetooth connection - up to about 10 metres in our tests.

One nice feature is that the device supports near-field communication (NFC). That means that it is possible to connect an NFC-compatible smartphone simply by tapping it on to the Music Gateway. This took a few attempts when testing using the NFC-enabled Sony Xperia Ion, but is a neat enough feature.

Another advantage of the Music Gateway is that it also allows you to play internet radio stations through your stereo, as well as the music files stored on your smartphone.

There will be a time when such devices become redundant, given the rise of internet-connected stereos.

But in the meantime, the Music Gateway is a useful little gadget - and at Dh184, it's going for a song.