I've had XM for four years, and this is the third type of unit I've had, and it is, by far, the best. I owned the portable Delphi unit, which worked fine. I bought this Inno for a friend, and when I saw it, I fell in love and bought one myself.
Why I love it:
Size: It is small, and sleek. It comes with a little leather case to protect it (bravo to Pioneer for not making me spend another $30 on an after-market case!) on the go.
Reception: It has an internal antenna that little stub on the top of it in the picture is the antenna. Unlike the old Delphi, no need for an external wire clipped to clothing for reception; the reception is GREAT and smooth.
Battery: I haven't gone out all day yet, but after three hours yesterday, the battery was still over half charged. The battery indicator is clear as well. BTW, the unit comes with a slight charge, so you can "play" with it right away; no maddening "please wait 8 hours before first use."
Recording: Easy to quickly record a station, a single song, and even schedule a recording in the future. This is good for the talk radio channels.
Menu: Easy to flip through and select menus. The display screen is a great improvement; it isn't just color because it's cool; it's designed to make navigation easier.
Power: No need to lug cradle on trips. It comes with an additional more compact charger for travel. Thanks!
Why someone might complain:
Earphones: I've read reviews complaining about the earbuds. Yes, they are cheap, but so what? I've got so many other ones scattered about, it isn't really an issue. I use my ipod buds, my Bose headset, whatever. Who cares about the little earbuds? It's just something so the package is complete, and you can listen right away.
FM Modulator: Not internal to the unit, but must be purchased with the car or other kit. But then again, there are so many of those on the market, I appreciate that they didn't eat up size/functions with the modulator that is easily added on elsewhere. This is a PORTABLE unit. I don't really need a modulator when I'm out walking around...
Memory: Again, I've heard complaints about the storage size for books and recordings. I wouldn't have been surprised if there had been a slot for a card, but I'm okay with that. I've got an ipod; I'll leave my books on there. I'll use this radio as a RADIO.
OVERALL it's great. Reception is good and consistent, screen easy to navigate, solid battery charge, and the accessories in the box are great no need to buy aftermarket anything.
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I've had this radio for a few weeks, and I think I can give an accurate review now. This is my first time having satellite radio, and I love it! The station selection is awesome, but I will not go there because I am not reviewing XM.
The Inno is sized about the same as an iPod, and it is really sleek (and slick for that matter.) As this is intended for all around use (car, home, and portable) it is very adaptable. I think it is very neat that when sitting sideways on the dock the Inno automatically switches sideways so you can look at the screen face on. The pad adjusts as well, so everything is very logical.
Some of the main features that are impressive are:
--The recording capability--even if you are almost all the way through the song you can get the whole thing!
--The bookmark capability. You can bookmark an artist or a particular song and anytime that artist or song is playing on any station the Inno will let you know so you can switch over.
--The ability to create a "favorites" list of stations.
--The ability to display the current song/artist on any given station.
--The option to have sports/stock tickers running that shows scores, etc, while listening to the radio.
OK, there's a ton of useful options. Really, I just love being able to listen to what I want on a very cool little "toy." Having never owned a satellite radio before, I am not an "expert" and I'm sure this has flaws, but don't point them out to me. I will likely not hear you because I will be plugged into my radio!
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I bought my Inno2 on Monday. It's my first XM radio, and I've never owned Sirius, so understand that this is a first timer's point of view.
What I *love* about this unit: You can record XM radio, and replay it later. Where I work and use the unit mostly is in an office without a way to use the required antenna for reception. Even though this unit claimes to be portable, it still won't work indoors, w/o direct line of sight to the satelite (read see the southern sky.) BUT, you can record up to 50 hours or so of XM radio. You can recored multiple sessions of different stations, which is very cool. I like liquid metal, alt rock and gangsta rap. I recored about 30 hours of music this week, brought the docking bay into my office, and listened away. You can also build custom playlists from the recorded music (from different sessions, channels, etc, mix and match as much as you like.) When you record sessions of radio, it saves the songs like MP3 w/ artist and song and genre info. You can use this to create playlists of a particular genre, or mix and match in any way you like. You can also search for song, artist, genre and play a particular song from whatever you recorded previously.
If you select to listen to a recorded session, it's just like listening live has all the artist info scrolling, etc. If you make a playlist with random songs (or shuffle them) then you do have one small inconvenience the start and end of each song will have fade in and outs of other songs mixed in. This is because when recording something that was live, they cross-faded the songes. When playing a whole recorded session, it sounds perfectly natural of course. Personaly this is rarly even noticeable when playing playlists of random songs.. But if you are a perfectionist get ready for a slight annoyance. One more note XM is perhaps commercial free, but it still has promotional announcements and odd bits of interest (like a 2Min interviwe w/ an artist, etc.) They get saved to memory just like other songs, and you can delete them when you run across them during playback later if you are so inclined.
I would have given this unit 5 stars except that the menu system just plain makes me cry. Perhaps it's because this is my first XM unit, but coming from the MP3 player world, doing simple tasks like adding songs to a playlist are accomplish. For instance, to add music to a playlist, you dont' go to the playlist section go to the recorded music, find the genre, pic an individual song, then select 'add to playlist' from there. If you want to add an entire genre or recorded channel's music, you do it by pretending you want to add just one song from that selection, then when you have the 'add to playlist' selected for that one song, it has an option to add them all. But I'm getting more comfortable with the menu system, and I still am very very glad I got this badboy.
The unit itself feels very solid. The buttons seem like they'll last a LONG time, there's no loose fitting parts. It's fairly well sealed, I suppose it can handle light rain or the occasional light laugh induced soda nose spray. The screen is sweet to say the least. Turn the unit on its side to put it in the docking station, and the whole screen rotates 90Degrees, as do the buttons, so that even on its side the button layout and words are properly orientated. This makes the thing feel realy well developed. The info on the display is easy to read, you can pick small or large fonts, and a stock ticker if you're big into money.
The system comes with an antenna, a docking bay, wall-plug power supply, some headphones and an adapter cord (for using the power plug without the docking bay.) The docking bay is solid, sits at a great angle to display the unit (it is tilted back just a small bit,) and the unit plugs in snug-n-easy. There is an audio-out on the docking bay, for playing through a stereo (cord included). You can use the headphone jack while the system is in the docking bay, allowing you to use the remote control's volume. The remote is great, even when using on a desk w/in reach, because you don't have to grab the whole system to change a song. The headphones are ok, but I am MUCH happier with the sound I get from my Sony $20 headphones. The included headphones are very comfortable, but have only a fair sound quality, with little bass. I've never seen a system ship with decent headphones, so this is status quoe in my book.
You can upload MP3s and such to the unit, which is plug-n-play with the provided USB cable. You can not to my knowledge play movies on it. I was trying to get away from that whole upload MP3 song and dance, so while I tested it, and it worked, I'd rather grab tens of hours of DJ provided music for literaly $13 a month. To play recorded XM radio, you have to maintain your XM radio account, of course.
While XM has something for everyone, personaly, I find that it only has probably 10-15 channels I'll ever listen too. There are 170 channels of course, but get rid of the sports and country music, the news channels, etc, and it has a comfortable selection of usable channels to keep me entertained and awake while working.
While this unit has an entenna built in, using the unit without a connected antenna (i.e. standing outside if you turn in a cirle while listening to it in your hand, it'll probably lose signal. But in a car, home w/ the antenna in a window, or listening to pre-recorded music, it's just phenominal. SO just because it looks like a portable radio, don't expect to put it in your pocket and use it while mountain bike riding unless you'er playing pre-recorded music. From what I have heard, the antenna headphones might work ok, but I haven't tried them, nor do I plan to step back into the 1990's and have a C-Clamp strapped to my cranium once again.
I couldn't be happier with this thing all in all. It's cool, sounds great, feels solid. I figure it was worth every penny of the $200 I paid.
As a side note, the car docking bay feels pretty fragile. It hangs from the A/C or Heating Vents in your dash, it's wiggly, and bounces around a little when you go over small bumps and around corners.
Honest reviews on Pioneer GEX-INNO2BK Inno 2 Portable XM Satellite Radio with MP3
The Inno is my first satellite radio. I bought it mainly as a means of getting to listen to new music without having to go hunt for it, or listen to endless adverts. The fact that the Inno is portable was a major factor in deciding on this particular unit.
Pros its reasonably well made (not as nicely finished as an iPod, but not cheap feeling either). It comes with a reasonable set of earbuds. The XM channel selection is superb!
Cons the door to the battery compartment is held on with some really flimsy tabs, I wouldn't like to change battery often since these will likely break off after a few uses. The sound quality of XM radio is not as good as I thought it would be (this is not a comment on this radio, rather its a comment on all satellite radios the talk shows sound like AM, the music sounds like some low bps MP3s. All in all the sound is quite murky and sibilant compared to an iPod and decent earphones. That said, its good enough for casual listening while outdoors. I'm just glad I didn't pay $990 to get XM fitted as an option in my car!).
The Inno does what I need it to do. What it doesn't do is play well as a 'live' XM radio outdoors. Trees and buildings (or even your arm) frequently get in the way of the signal, and the sound dies. Making it too annoying to use. Since nothing I listen to is time sensitive its fine to record big chunks of music and listen to that instead. Its painless to record many hours of music once a week, or even less frequently, and that works for days.
Indoors the unit works well with the antenna that comes included. Even with trees in the way it gets a strong signal, even when the antenna is quite far from the window.
Bottom line. In the future, when the technology advances and the bitrate improves, XM radio will be awesome. Currently its good, provided you are prepared to focus on the content and not the sound quality. The Inno is excellent for using when you are biking, running or walking, provided you are in an area with excellent signal and no trees, or you don't mind listening to recorded material.
The Inno was a good buy, and one that I'm thoroughly enjoying using. But, stil a few years off being perfect. I'm guessing I'll be replacing the Inno when something better comes along in a couple of years time.
Oh, since people mention this in other reviews I've turned all the available recording space to XM use, and don't intend using it for storing my mp3s. It would be too annoying ot listen to high bitrate mp3s and then switch back to XM radio quality. Nor do I intend to use it in the car for live radio, I'm sticking to pre-recorded stuff.
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I drive a lot on highways so wanted to give satellite radio a try. I once hesitated because installing the external antenna seemed to be troublesome. Additionally, I drove two cars alternatively with my wife but only wanted to have one radio (my wife doesn't like the idea of satellite radio). That means I would need two car kits and do the installation twice.
Anyway, I still wanted to try. I picked up Pioneer Gex-Inno2BK after reading those good reviews at Amazon (the other portable one that I was interested is DelPhi SKYFI3). It turns out to be a big, good surprise: Inno2 does not need the external antenna! Well, I am talking about highways in Midwest, so keep that in mind. It does lose signal occasionally when my vehicle passes under bridges. Actually most bridges are fine, and when the radio lost signal it's just a couple of seconds.
It also works fine in the local roads of Chicago suburban areas where the signal is mostly from terrestrial repeater (with occasional loss of signal). I also used it in a small town in Iowa with no terrestrial repeater. It works better than in Chicago suburban area because the buildings there are much less dense.
The location to mount the radio does matter. I mount the radio on the air vent using a vent mount bought from Wal-Mart. If I put the radio on the passenger's seat, it may lose signal when the vehicle picks up a upslope or downslope. Using a windshield mount gives even better signal, but the vent mount works almost as well -I prefer vent mount for its lower position.
Battery life is decent in the range of about five hours. It's good enough for most of my trips. If needed, $10 chargers for Inno are available on the Internet.
Some other good surprises: I can use it in subway trains of Chicago without using headphone antenna (so far I only used it in part of the blue line and I will update on this). The signal is from terrestrial repeaters. In the Salt Lake City airport, the terrestrial repeaters are so strong that I can walk with the radio without any signal loss. I haven't purchased the headphone antenna yet.
Some cons: The screen is small for vehicle use. I use the largest display fonts and then most song titles will be rotated on the screen. There is a bug (I think so) that only part of song title is displayed when being rotated, for example, "Big Girls Don't Cry" becomes "Big Girls Don't". That's a strange software bug and I wish Inno would have a firmware fix for this. The menus do not rotate -if a menu is long and I want go to the last item, I have to move all the way to there. But those are minor issues.
update on 3/18/08: Now I have four more weeks of experience with Inno2. It still works great and I keep my rating. It works well on Chicago subways. The closer to the city center, the stronger the signal from the terrestrial repeaters. The internal antenna doesn't work well enough when I walk on the streets. Driving on the streets is not a problem, because the driveway is away from the building I believe. It is better to take some recording for walk to subway stations.
As for driving, I found that weather affects the signal (with internal antenna) slightly and in an unpredictable way. On a heavily snowing day the Inno2 got good signal all the trip, and on a cloudy it lost signal more often. Overall it works well -I did some sampling (definitely not scientific way) and concluded that I lost less that 0.5% listening time in that worst day for all kinds of reasons. Installing an external antenna should improve the condition, but to me it's not worth the associated cost, time and risk of vehicle interior damage. (Whenever there is a signal, signal strength doesn't make a difference to sound quality for digital radios.)
I found a caveat in a trip east-bound on I-80 -when I intentionally drove my car on the left lane in parallel with the CENTER part of a 18-wheel truck on the right lane, after a while the signal was lost. The XM satellite signal comes from the south and the truck could block the signal. Nevertheless, for normal passing the Inno didn't lose signal. It seems to have some buffer to tolerate glitches in signal reception.
A final word on XM radio sound quality: It is good but not close to that of iPod. With a scale from 1 to 10, I would give 10 to CD sound quality, 9 to iPod, and 7 to XM radio and the best FM radio stations. XM and FM are different: XM seems to have more clarity and those best FM stations more dynamic range. I still like XM for non-commercial music and for no need to search new FM stations every 50-80 miles.
PS I should have mentioned that the Inno2 is connected to the car audio through an aux port.
