jnoschese's Full Review: Pioneer AirWare™ xm2go™ Satellite Radio Receiv...
Satellite Quick Overview:
It’s no pat battle to pick which satellite service your going to go for, your choices are XM and Sirius radio, period.
This is my first time subscribing to a pay-for radio service, and I have to tell you I was a little nervous as I haven’t listened to regular commercial radio for at least 5 or 6 years. No fear, XM is here, and it has been.
I have always been in favor of XM devices for a few years, just waiting to bite the bullet on buying a device. For starters, I don’t own a big rig or the strength to carry Sirius device, and XM always seemed like DirecTV to me, a company who knows something about satellite. Sirius devices to me always seem to be messy installs and lack quality in hookup.
Making the plunge you can order several plans; I opted for the 1 year deal which gives me a month free in. The more years you buy in for, the less a month it will cost a month. You can cancel at any time and get it pro-rated, too, which is nice.
Once you are a XM subscriber, which was painless, and $3 or $4 cheaper on their website rather than telephone, you also have access to XM radio via the internet and their website. You’ll actually get a few Online Only Exclusive stations, which I hope they add to the regular satellite service.
The XM content itself is amazing. I find myself listening to the radio nonstop now, as I hear songs that commercial radio wouldn’t even dream of playing. There is every genre available and several stations of each genre including talk radio, comedy, full line of sports and even local traffic and weather. Listening to sports is typically pretty cool where it will show the score for the artist and the inning/outs for the song title.
Why Pioneer:
Pioneer came into the game as far as selling devices, which the most popular devices are created by Delphi, which I’m slightly afraid of, since really, I’ve never heard of the company. While I own several Pioneer devices already, I think this is a great start for me and satellite radio.
The Airwave:
The Airwave is basically a FM walkman, except XM radio, with 5 hours of content storage. The airwave is packed with several features and has all features provided by XM’s other devices.
The Device:
The size of the Airwave is much the size of any mp3 hard drive portable device, but somewhat bigger on the sides, but also much, much lighter. It is still a very portable device.
The Airwave sports an Antenna built into the device, but has a jack to hook up an external XM antenna as well as power. All the included XM antennas will fit this without a problem. And no cradle is needed. When not using an antenna, the Airwave is lacking somewhat. It seems like whatever I’m in front of will block it at times, but I haven’t really tested this out too much as of yet (only a few days old), and I usually have an antenna hooked up or listening to 2go content. I’m actually surprised however though that the built in antenna does work well when in the wide open and is not completely necessary to carry around another antenna in your pocket if on the road. It will also depend on the area you live, where larger cities have XM repeaters so it will be easier to get a signal. A lot of XM car stereo owners have these repeater devices making it better for you to get a signal.
It has several buttons, a telephone style button layout, and a jog wheel much like a Blackberry to scroll through stations and menus. While the menus are a little bland and the menu back out button is placed in the wrong spot if docked, it gets the job done, although it could’ve been done a little bit better. In fact, the little disc on the front, which is volume and track selection, I feel it should’ve been for the menus as well, but this is fine.
The Display:
The display looks similar to a blackberry or a cell phone showing your antenna status, battery meter, current time, Live/2go status, and preset selection. Below, it displays the channel number and title. The artist and song title are displayed pretty big underneath, and there are four display settings where it will scroll that info in jumbo letters. Two of the display settings are for the Info Extras and Stock quotes which are talked about below at the bottom.
Battery Life:
Battery life got me about 5 hours straight nonstop listening. Not bad in my book. I'm not sure how long it takes to charge, but it lets you know when its fully charge. I ususally let it go over night, so no longer than 8 hours.
Sound Quality:
Sound quality on the device is superb. Sounds way better FM radio, and similar to mp3’s, some stations are better and very close to CD quality, if not. You are able to crank up the Airwave blowing out your eardrums, which I like, especially when I’m in the subway station and can’t hear a thing.
Accessories:
Don’t worry about needing accessories; the Pioneer Airwave comes packed with everything possible you would need, including a satellite antenna and cradle for home and your car. It comes with RCA jacks for hooking up for your stereo line-in, or even your car line in if needed. There are a slew of other accessories like carrying case and home and car power adapters.
On The Road Again:
There are several options with the Airwave, you can simply use the cradle which all the hookup nessecary, or use the built in FM transmitter. This is helpful if your in dash receiver in your car doesn’t offer RCA inputs and are unable to use the cassette adapter included. It even lets you select which FM station you would like use, there are about 10 choices to get the best reception. Pioneer recommends using the magnet mount antenna on the roof of the car, but placing it in the front windshield is working just fine for me. The cradle for the car comes with several different configurations like durastick and a/c vent installation. I find the a/c vent install easy and I can remove at any time.
In The Home Again:
I have my cradle and antenna setup by my receiver, and use the lineout. While both cradles are identical in function, the silver home adapter is nice looking to keep with your stereo system to keep in a permanent spot.
2go Features:
XM2go is a feature that allows you to store up to 5 hours of XM broadcast content. There are a few things you are able to do, while some of it is limited and upsetting, it’s a nice step in the right direction.
The device allows you to record programming based on time, for instance, its very simple now to sleep through Opie And Anthony and have it recorded from 7am to 11am EST and listen to it after. This is however where I can see more in the device. While programming is split up by ‘track’ recorded, you are unable to scan through the tracks, only skip, so content that is a half hour, you’ll have to stick through or skip it. Not a big deal for music tracks but for some of the talk radio content or Sports, this is a little bit of a shortcoming.
The Pioneer also makes it impossible to delete selected tracks, you are only able to delete all or nothing. The device will continue to record however, if it reaches its 5 hour mark and delete the oldest recording first to fit your new content.
Stock Ticker & Info Extras:
It allows you to enter about 20 stock tickers that you can have run across the bottom of the display, and it will download those quotes, which is a nice little feature. Quotes of course are about 15-20 minutes delayed.
The Info Extras, which seems to always be added, mostly right now for sports, but I can see them adding weather, allows you to pick from MLB, NHL, NFL, Golf, NASCAR, etc etc etc, and you can select certain teams or as much content as you want, that will scroll across the bottom, which will show you current scores for your teams select, or when they next play or the final scores. Pretty neat. I hope XM adds local weather to that soon.
Other device features:
There are 30 presets that can created, which are easy to access.
Audio Options: You can set Tone controls (Treble and Bass) and Line out level (For when you have hooked up to a stereo (awesome feature)
Set FM Frequency: This is where you can set the frequency for in car or FM radio hookup (look ma, no wires)
TuneSelect: This allows you when you hear a song, add the song or artist to a list, and the Airwave will notify you when a song by that name or artist is playing on another station.
XM and Airwave are the way to go, for versatility and ease anywhere you are.
XM Reception through XM Tuner (service required) Included rechargeable battery provides up to 5 hours play on a single charge Built-in Memory records ...More at Amazon Marketplace
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