XM INNO: The portable Satellite radio receiver and miniTIVO
Written: Mar 22 '07
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Audio quality, storage, choice.
Cons: If you don't live in a city direct line of site needed.
The Bottom Line: Sure I am the last person I know to get XM or Sirius but I am happy I waited for the INNO.
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| jckatz's Full Review: Pioneer GEX-INNO1 XM Radio Receiver with Home Kit |
Well, it is 2007 and I finally did it, I purchased satellite radio. I made my purchase on a Sunday (more about that later), based on a full page ad in the New York Times about the Sirius XM merger.
Reasons I haven’t purchase Satellite radio until now
1. I don’t drive.
I purchased a brand new car in Nov of 2005; in January of 2007 I hit the 7,000 mile mark. (1/2 of all miles drove in a 3 month period for work).
2. I love Baseball and I love Howard Stern
XM has baseball Sirius has Stern.
3. Past portables were NOT portable
Reasons to get Satellite radio now
XM makes a truly portable satellite receiver. Unlike Sirius that was portable in they way of letting you record you radio and then listen to it away from the docking station, XM Inno has a built in antenna for truly portable listening of LIVE streaming satellite radio.
Sirius and XM are merging so soon (if its FCC’s will) Stern will be broadcast from M-3 "Rhythm" and XM-4 "Blues" the Satellites owned by XM.
ABOUT THE UNIT
While I have only owned it for a week, I will say based on other reviews and how it feels, this unit is sturdy; it has always survived some abuse and neglect by yours truly already.
ABUSE, dropped it a few times off my desk and NEGLECT I lost my keys so I ran around my apartment with my XM Inno attached to my jacket and looked everywhere flat on my belly with the radio being pressed into my chest, I was frantic so I didn’t even take the second to remove it from its hold I just took the pain, and it survived.
The unit I have is black I have read there is a pink unit that donates money to Breast Cancer research. ( http://snipurl.com/1cjth )
The unit has flat buttons with slightly raised edges making feeling them easy and there is a surprising amount of movement when you click, I really like the feel of the unit.
The unit comes with a holster and gives you access to ALL the buttons (including the power and the hold button (nice design) and there is a leather cover over the toggle buttons to keep you from accidentally changing channels.
ONE CLICK recording
If you are listening to a song, click the center button and the song is added to your XM radio library (this is different than your PC music library (WMA or MP3, Napster also). The XM radio library CAN NOT be transferred to your PC, thank you RIAA. So to keep XM and Pioneer out of trouble the unit comes with a partitioned flash memory drive. 100% dedicated to XM = 50 hours. I have mine set for 50% XM 50% Mp3.
If you are listening to a song and decided after it already started that you want to record it just hit the center button, it will record FROM the beginning of the song. This is made possible by a buffer (just like on TIVO), but don’t think just because it has a buffer means they will let your REWIND when you missed something because some jerk with a sound system louder than yours headphones drives by, there is no rewind button.
Bookmarks
So you are listening to a song, and a band you never heard of before but like or a song you never heard before appears, sure you could record it or you can bookmark it, then when you hook up your INNO to your PC (maybe Mac’s also) Napster will find that artist or song for you. I am not a Napster subscriber and I don’t plan on being one, so I haven’t tested this out sorry, but I figured I should mention it.
AUDIO
The box says, “NEAR CD quality” as if CD was the gold standard. But lets be honest, I am not an audio snob who knows that a good record with a great record player produces better audio sound than a CD. While I do know this to be true, and I agree with it, do we REALLY want to have to take care of a record and a player just to have a slightly better audio experience, of course not, we want the best possible sound with the least about of effort, and XM radio is starting to give us that.
That being said, the first thing you should do when you open your XM Inno box is throw away the headphones. When first listened to XM Inno I almost returned it, if this was near CD quality than I wanted to know what they called, “near bootleg audio tape quality”.
But this problem was quickly solved with a pair of $20 SonyŽ headphones that were currently being used by my MP3 player.
What I was hearing (or wasn’t hearing) wasn’t audio compression loosing the higher audio, it was just the headphone unable to produce the audio XM was transmitting.
Now I ask you this, if you are selling a $299 music machine, why not spend a few extra dollars on quality headphones, you don’t see anyone throwing away their iPod headphones are replacing them with Sony headphones.
Satellite
XM radio works via 2 geostationary satellites in the sky, Rhythm and Blues (the old Satellites were Rock and Roll) they are still in orbit and if something should happen to Rhythm or Blues than Rock and Roll will take over the responsibilities of giving XM subscribers music. Sirius radio uses slightly different technology they have 3 satellites in non geostationary orbit, this “constellation” of satellites means there is always 1 or more satellites bean to the United States. It also means the satellites are closer to Earth, but I have not heard anything about Sirius having better audio because it this.
Terrestrial: Or the XM Urban experience
Shortly after purchasing my XM radio I took it with me to Chicago. The trip to Chicago is NORTH so no matter which seat I choose I wouldn’t have a southern view window, until I got to Chicago, when the train starts turning into the city. So I figured I would catch the end of the Cubs game and I did. Amazingly the signal was very strong, then something VERY unexpected happened the train went underground and I still was listening to the Cubs. How is this possible? Then I remembered that in cities like Chicago XM has “re-transmitters”, I had assumed that they would still be “line of site” but more of them, but these terrestrial signals are powerful enough enter a train a city street. They are also powerful enough to reach inside an elevator 6 stories inside a building.
Compare this to my local, non-metropolitan experience when a tree is enough to block my signal.
DOCKING STATION
The unit comes with a docking station, a very long antenna cable, power supply, RCA cables, USB cable, and remote control. Everything comes with batteries including your XM radio, instant gratification (almost, more on this later).
After putting your antenna in a southern sky facing windows and dragging the cable across the room to the nearest power supply you can listen to XM in your house, I later moved it closer to my amplifier and plugged it into my CD input. So I have the audio coming from my surround sound system.
Registration
You pay $12.95 a month to listen to the radio, before you purchase this you will have to make that decision, XM does not offer a life time membership and Sirius has fazed theirs out.
When you open the box you find that the unit has a charged battery this is important since you want to register. So you call the 800 number ($15 registration fee) or use the web site $5 registration fee. I of course used the web site, and it was down.
It told me to call the 800 number and I did, and they were closed, I purchased my unit on Sunday evening.
Meanwhile I had my unit working but only channel 1 worked, channel one told me to go to the website and then told me about what I could expect from XM, then it repeated the message again and again and again. I am NOT a fan of channel 1.
I kept trying the web site, and it was down all night, so Monday Morning I got up and hit redial and registered my unit. I first complained but their website being down and their phone not being answered when their website was down (it said it was scheduled maintenance). So when the guy tried to charge me $15 to setup fee, I told him what I thought about that, and had it waved. So the question is, do you try your luck getting out of a $15 fee, or do you PAY the $5 fee.
After registration my unit was working in minutes, but I was told to wait 15 minutes.
How registration works
The true methods is a well kept secret but the book tells you that you need to listen to your unit 8 hours a month otherwise you MIGHT have to re-register. This doesn’t cost and there is a button on the website to “refresh” your unit.
Speculation is the satellites send signals to units to tell them who is live and who is dead, and if you don’t listen enough your radio will miss the message to keep it alive.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
jckatz
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Member: Joe Katz
Location: chicago
Reviews written: 153
Trusted by: 74 members
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