The Interactive gaming chair
Over the past three weeks or so I've been testing out the Slouchpod Interactive XT, an interactive media chair designed for music lovers, media junkies and gamers.
First and foremost I'm a gamer, so this review is written from a gamer's perspective, although the Slouchpod is being marketed as a multi-media chair, meaning that you can plug in CD players, MP3s, iPods, DVD players, hook it up to your TV or use it as I did for plugging in your next-gen consoles or handhelds.
First off, let's take a look at the chair's visual appeal. At first glance the Slouchpod looks like a stylish bean bag, albeit covered with a hard wearing synthetic leather material, but on closer inspection, nestled into the upholstery, are two high level 5W stereo speakers, firmly locked into the back rest - one either side of your ears. Resting on the base of the back rest is a 10W sub woofer base speaker and within comfortable reaching distance on the right hand side of the seat is a control panel which sports a headphone jack, volume and bass dial controls, input and output sockets for plugging the leads into and an illuminated digital display panel, which lights up blue when you power it up (purely for cosmetic purposes).
Next to the control panel sits a small pocket with a tag attached to it stating that it's an 'MP3 pouch', but the pocket is slated on the company's brochure as being a 'Universal pocket' ideal for keeping remote controls etc.. Unfortunately the pocket is extremely small and tight and unless you have very small controllers in your house (mine are the size of house bricks), its only purpose will be for carrying the aforementioned MP3 player; anything else is just too big. It's a small but unnecessary oversight not to include storage space in the Slouchpod's design because it could have been used for carrying your favourite games, handhelds or gaming accessories.
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