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The Bose SoundDock Portable is easy to sum up. This is a nice product with good sound and solid build quality. It's missing one key feature--a built-in AM/FM radio--and it's at least $100 overpriced. What can we say?

$399 is a lot to pay for an iPod speaker, but this one happens to sound exceptionally good — better than any other currently available portable model, in fact. If you can shell out the dough, you won’t be disappointed, except maybe by the lack of carrying case to protect your expensive purchase.

The SoundDock Portable retains the original SoundDock's main appeal: simplicity. Take it out of the box, plug it in, dock your iPod, and you get good audio in an attractive package. It's just that now you can take that audio to the back yard, and you get a number of useful improvements.

Ultimately, the portability of this better-than-average iPod dock is more suited to excursions from the living room to the backyard than from, say, New York to Spain. Fans of Bose's sleek, minimalist look may not be able to resist, but the hefty price tag makes this a serious splurge.

We were on the edge of two possible ratings—given all the alternatives that are now out there, SoundDock Portable won’t blow anyone away for the $399 asking price—but we felt that it was still worthy of our general recommendation.

The likeable sound, coupled with neat, tidy design and effortless portability, make this as convincing a dock as we've heard from Bose in a while. We just can't help thinking that the price is a touch high - and that's where it loses a star.

The main stumbling block with the SoundDock isn't anything to do with its design or sound quality. In fact, this is a well-designed rechargeable speaker system that does the job it's designed to do well, notwithstanding the ineffectual remote. It's the price that really sticks in the craw.