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Matchstick Dock for the Kindle Fire Now Shipping

Earlier this year I blogged about the Firedock, a high end speaker dock for the Kindle Fire. This device didn’t get much attention at the time, so I wasn’t surprised when no one seemed to notice when it started shipping last month.

Even I missed it, but luckily for me Grace Digital sent me a review unit earlier this week. They’re calling it the Matchstick now, and for $130 it’s a fairly impressive dock.

I played with it today, and I think you might be getting your money’s worth.

The Matchstick is significantly larger and more expensive than the N-Station, the Nook Tablet dock I tried a couple months back. It has 2 large forward facing speakers, not the 2 small sideways facing ones on the N-Station. The MatchStick has a cradle for the Kindle Fire which holds it quite firmly in portrait and landscape.

There’s 5 buttons on the dock, including power and volume as well as a button to wake the KF and a 5th button to charge the KF from the dock. (I like how that’s optional). The wake button is on the bottom of the cradle, about where the power button for the KF is located. There aren’t many audio controls on the dock, but the remote has buttons for mute, volume, bass, treble, and an equalizer.

Build quality is good. This is a solid and rather heavy dock, and it also has an extra audio in jack next to the power port (on the backside).

The quality of the sound is also good, but to be honest I don’t have hearing good enough to discern the nuances. But I can say that this gets quite loud without any noticeable distortion. The speakers also correctly played my test word ('murphy’s' in the song High on Firefly), and that puts this dock ahead of pretty much all the tablets I’ve tested. In comparison, my laptop can’t even get that word right.

So is it worth it? Given that I’m not one to buy a dock in the first place, I can’t answer. I’m more of a hold a tablet in my hand kind of person, so I don’t really understand who would use the dock.

Edit: When I reviewed the N-Station dock,  I could see someone using it as they sat at their computer, but I don’t think the Matchstick would work quite so well. It’s larger, and the speakers are much stronger.   That is more of a room-size dock, so I don’t think ti would work so well on a desk.

But I can say that I don’t see any issues with it. It’s a solid piece of equipment.

Matchstick

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Comments


cookie July 13, 2012 um 4:01 pm

"i don’t really understand who would use the dock"

Those who sit down at their PCs and desire to have a convenient place to put their tablet so that they can charge it and use it as a second display for things like email or streaming. I honestly don’t see how that is not crystal clear to everyone.

Nate Hoffelder July 13, 2012 um 4:47 pm

When I’m sitting down at my computer I play stuff on my computer. And I don’t do background music.


365andMe July 16, 2012 um 5:04 pm

Had to chuckle at Cookie’s "I honestly don’t see how that is not crystal clear to everyone." I’m one who has more than one device on my desk. Looking now, I have three plus my laptop. Also, I’m glad to see this review. I wanted something a bit on the large side to use in my bedroom. This looks to be exactly what I’d hoped for.


Thomas July 16, 2012 um 8:21 pm

No one makes fancy docks like this for cheap tablets like my Polaroid, so I had to get the same functionality by jury-rigging. I propped it up on a piece of styrofoam. Then I had to go to the extreme effort of connecting TWO whole cords, one to the power supply, the other to my spare set of computer speakers. It doesn’t look as purty, but my total cost was the $50 that I paid for the speakers 15 years ago. I’d bet that the old Altec-Lansings with the subwoofer sound better, though.


Greg August 16, 2012 um 8:24 pm

The Matchstick can be found on Amazon in the Kindle store for $99.99
http://www.amazon.com/Grace-Digital-MatchStick-GDI-GFD7200-Charging/dp/B007VL8Y5E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345163019&sr=8-1&keywords=matchstick


ReaderDock October 6, 2012 um 10:50 am

Get a ReaderDock 7″ Kindle Fire or NOOK Speaker Dock for only $49.95 + Free Shipping (Reg. $69.99) … the lowest price EVER! Columbus Day sale valid Oct 6th – 9th only at – Grab yours today.


Amazon Snags Trademark for FireDock as New Amazon Kindle Clears the FCC | The Digital Reader August 23, 2016 um 1:43 pm

[…] registered by Grace Digital Audio, and they planned to use it for their Kindle Fire dock (which is now called the Matchstick). The trademark now belongs to Amazon. Coincidence? I think […]


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