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The XMp3 portable radio lets you record up to 100 hours of XM programs, record multiple channels simultaneously, auto-record, pause, and replay XM programming. With the XMp3 radio, your music never stops.
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Technical Details
- Portable XM Satellite Radio with MP3- Live XM: Enjoy over 170 channels of music and exclusive content
- Record up to 5 channels at the same time
- Enjoy your personal music with the micro SD card slot
- 16.5 hours playback time / 4 hours Live XM on battery
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By Edward (Long Island, NY)
I have been an XM subscriber since 2004. I started with the Roady 2 and then upgraded to the Xpress. The Xpress is a great radio, but it is limited because it isn't portable and must be used in the car dock or the home dock, so I upgraded again to the XMP3. I've had the XMP3 for about 6 months now and I use it for about 4 to 6 hours on most days. I think that it is a great radio. When used in the car dock or home dock, it is as good as any other XM radio, only with more features. When used as a portable device, the reception is also very good. I have used it while running, hiking, biking, on my boat, in cars without docks, on a cruise ship, in commercial airplanes, in stadiums, and in remote areas, including northern Canada. As long as you know what the limitations of the unit are, you can almost always get decent reception. When carried on your person, you can't get reception while the unit is in a pocket. I usually just hold it and switch hands when necessary to keep from getting my body between the XMP3 and the satellite. In a car without a dock, you can connect the earphone output to the stereo. It will usually work pretty good when placed as far up front on the dash as possible so the roof blocks it as little as possible. In cars with sunroofs, it works nearly perfectly. On airplanes, as long as you choose you seat wisely and place the unit against the window that faces in the general direction of the satellites, it will usually work. In case reception is poor, I'll place the unit in a dock, attach a home antenna to the dock, and place that against the window. That always works. On the ship, as long as I had a view of the western sky, I got reception. Finally, as a last resort if you know that you won't have reception, you can always pre-record xm and listen to it as needed.
The MP3 feature is also great. It makes the unit really versatile. You always have everything that you want to listen to with you. You can easily switch between live xm or your personal music. Whatever you are in the mood for is always with you. One minor complaint is that the XMP3 doesn't display album covers. Another complaint is that the downloadable XM2GO music manager is useless. I have been using windows media player. It will easily transfer and manage all my music files between the XMP3 and my computer. It works with both the SD card and the internal memory, but not with recorded xm.
The ability to record xm content is a fantastic bonus. You can record single songs or complete shows. If you hear something that you like, simply press a button at any time during the song and it will be captured and added to the memory. You can also schedule the unit to record up to 5 channels at a time. Recorded content is managed just like MP3s. It is sorted by song, artist, channel, date, and / or genre. I don't like the auto record feature where the unit automatically records content from the channels that you listen to the most. This was easily turned off.
The controls are easy to use and the menus are simple and straight forward. Anyone can figure out how to use the XMP3 simply by scrolling through the menus. When used in the car however, it is important to note that the controls aren't as simple as the Xpress and require more attention. This can be distracting. That is the trade off. Smaller, portable size and more features, require controls to perform multiple functions with less buttons. The remote does have all the necessary buttons and compensates for the XMP3's simplicity. It should always be used in the car.
Finally, I know that there are a lot of negative reviews out there. I've heard of a lot of people having technical problems. I don't know if I am just lucky or if Pioneer has worked out the bugs, but knock on wood, I haven't had any problems at all.
To conclude, I would buy this product again and I would highly recommend it to a friend. The best things about it are its portability, easily recorded xm content, and the bonus of an included MP3 player. It is a very versitale unit.
By Paul Foley
The firmware interface is unrefined compared to the most inexpensive mp3 player. Pioneer doesn't seem to have made any effort to make the player user friendly. After nine months of use, I can only get one hour of live XM reception vs the spec of "up to 4 hours". A new battery is $49.95
By Paul Boswell (Palm Springs, CA)
I have Siruis for the car and first looked at their portable, the Stiletto. It found it clunky, unattractive and expensive so decided to look at the XM line, assuming the two firms were now one. First, you should know they are still operated as separate companies so if you'll have to open a new account and pay full price. Since I had no intention of buying the Stiletto I decided I'd just have to pay for a whole new subscription. The bad news is, this isn't really portable. I was able to take it out and listen to it poolside where the radio had a clear line of sight to the sky and was not moving. However, I was unable to walk with it, even with a clear sky. It has virtually no buffer so kept cutting out. There is a long lag time as the software presents an annoyance screen that reads "No signal, listen to recorded programming." The XMP3 also has a feature that "learns" what 5 channels you listen to most often and records a random 90 minutes or so when it's just plugged into the antenna and resting. This is to enable you to have some kind of recorded content for when you're moving. Unfortunately, there is no way to erase this content. You can also schedule recordings, like TiVO, but you will find that many channels are locked out to prevent scheduled recording, even though you can manually envoke recording of those programs. The whole system looks like it was designed by a committee with a lot of ideas that were never completely through through or tested. Or perhaps support has been abandoned in their cost-cutting mode. Navigating is clumsy -- this is no iPhone in terms of user interface sophistication. The sound quality on talk stations, such as MLB sports, is lousy, with a lot of compression artifacts. I do not know if this is due to a flaw in XM's system or the radio itself. I have heard these audio compression artifacts on Sirius' talk programming, but not to this extent. Also be aware that Sirius XM now charge a hefty 15% "tax" on your subscription to pay for music copyright royalties that are unique to Satellite Radio. That's an extra $24 per year per radio. Too late I discovered I could get MLB radio on the MLB iPhone application for free, so if you're looking for XM just for MLB, I'd suggest an iPhone instead. The unit is very good looking and seems to be well built. The MP3 function only works on recent models of PC. If you have a Mac, Linux or no PC of your own, you're out of luck. You'll be hard pressed to find accessories for this product. It's amazing that XM's "flagship portable" has so little support.
By Ron (Jersey)
I have owned this receiver for 4 months now. I do like the recording aspect of the receiver which I do by placing it in the dock and aiming the antenna out my window. Trying to listen to live radio while walking around with this is much too frustrating. Ever tree you pass under or tall building makes the reception fade or die. I like the menus on the player and learned my way around very quickly. However there are several wonky issues with the device. The automatic recording doesn't seem to work right. Forgot about the auto recording where the device picks things it thinks you will like to record. I just turned that off all together. Also there seems to be no way to erase recorded stuff from the drive. The device will record stuff until the drive is full and then will not record anymore. I though that I read that it would erase older stuff to make room for new stuff, but that is not the case on mine. When my drive is full I must erase and return to original settings to clear the drive which make me redo all my favorite stations each time. Last little issue is the lack of a case to carry the item. I use an old Belkin case to carry mine on my hip, but Pioneer doesn't make a proper case for their own product.
By K. Graham
I bought this with a car kit as well.
Just to try it out before I took it to the office, I set this up in my kitchen. We have a lot of trees in our yard and it took me awhile to find a good window to set the antenna in. Even slight variations made a difference in reception.
I then set the home kit up in my office and despite my office being in a high rise, it gets very good reception. The cord from the antenna (which sits in a window) to the base unit is plenty long to reach across my fairly small office. The power cord isn't very long which limits where I can put the base unit on my desk. Then of course the earphones that come with it have a very short cord. So unless you have a very small office directly adjacent to a window, this set up might not work for the office.
For the car kit, I wished I'd shelled out the grotesque amount Toyota wanted to just set up XM right. We tried to hide all the wires from the car kit but at the end near the base station, they are all just hanging out because otherwise we would have had to punch holes in the dash. I didn't like the hang-off from the A/C duct at all since I live in the South and need the air flow on hot days; the way the hanger is set up the unit blocks the vent you use to hang it. Also the screen is difficult to read in direct sunlight. I found a place to mount the base station using the sticky pad that came with the kit but of course now my dash is permanently disfigured.
Probably there is a way to pre-set stations so you can access them easily but I haven't found it. There is a way to set "favorites" but then you still have to manipulate the flywheel to get between your favorite stations. Its a bit hard and dangerous to flip stations when driving in traffic! Like I said, if you have the money, go to a dealer and get this set up right through your stereo.
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