XM's upcoming XMp3 sneaks into latest issue of Popular Science

Little is known about this new portable XM player, which recently made an early appearance in Popular Science, but we're not sure we care to know a whole lot more. The "standout" feature is recording five XM stations at once -- which sounds great for satellite radio junkies, but we don't think it'll have people rushing to sign up for the service or anything. We bet it plays MP3s, though, so that's cool...

[Greg S. @ Sep 14th 2008 11:30AM]

Beware of XM portables, with history of being long on promises and short on delivery. I got burned by their first portable which I ended up throwing in the trash after spending over $300! Not to mention the ultra-poor sound quality of XM on any receiver and the tons of commercials for the same stuff you get in your spam emails. Let the buyer beware!

[Zadillo @ Sep 14th 2008 11:43AM]

Which stations have commercials for the same stuff you get in your spam emails? The only ones I can think of like that are 21-24, those stations run by Clear Channel. All the other music channels are commercial-free as far as I've been able to tell (certainly haven't heard commercials on the decades channels, the jazz channels, the rock channels in the 40's, etc.)

[a ham sandwich @ Sep 14th 2008 11:48AM]

the only thing i agree with you on is the poor quality. i think most stations are broadcast at on 64kbps which is pretty weak. i never, however, hear commercials on XM and i gotta say thats a major pleasure.

[Kris @ Sep 14th 2008 3:25PM]

No way. I have the Inno portable receiver and it works great! Naturally it doesn't work inside of a house with little to no windows nor does it work by itself in the car if it's sitting under the root (how could it?) but I can walk around outside and it works perfectly. I can put it on my dashboard on my car and it works great as well without an additional antenna.

XM's portable players (well, the INNO anyway. the SkyFi3 sucks majorly and isn't very portable) are awesome.

[Dave @ Sep 14th 2008 8:03PM]

Gotta agree with the others. I've had my Inno for years and have few problems with it. I even accidentally dropped it from a train platform to the tracks below and the thing still worked. (It didn't land *on* the tracks--that would have been a one-in-a-million chance.) Sound quality is indeed lacking but it does the trick, although I wish for more/expandable memory on upcoming models and better memory partitioning (50/50 MP3/XM and 100% XM isn't exactly practical).

Don't like commercials? Don't tune to the stations with the little "CM" indicator next to the name. Problem solved. Or if you do, know that they will play commercials on those.

[PhilR8 @ Sep 14th 2008 8:08PM]

I also have the Inno and I also love it. I never use it for live-on-the-go (because it doesn't really work) but I love the ability to record songs that I like and listen to the recordings as I do stuff outside of my car.

[M.R. @ Oct 22nd 2008 5:28PM]

I agree with Greg. Even channels that say they have no commercials have XM commercials. I'm listening to music and then hear about what's on the sports channel, or some special comming up, or why not buy another xm radio for a family member or for home. I only have a 20 minute ride to work, I don't want to spend it hearing this crap on a service I have to pay for.

[Yuri @ Sep 14th 2008 11:33AM]

I just wish that they'd add expandable memory to something like the Inno.

My dad uses the Inno and loves it to death, but he'd like room for his own music when he can't get the signal he wants at his work, he works in a mine.

[jupiterthunder @ Sep 14th 2008 2:07PM]

and he didn't see not getting a signal as a potential drawback to a portable satellite radio?

[Viperaven @ Sep 14th 2008 11:47AM]

Greg S. is misinformed! XM's XM2go was revolutionary. My son still use's to date and loves it. XM has continued to improve over the years, the INNO and now the XMp3. The sound quality is subjective. There are NO commercials on the music channels. Greg S. is a troll don't feed him.

[El Taco @ Sep 14th 2008 12:28PM]

ya, like everything else doesn't play MP3s

[El Taco @ Sep 14th 2008 12:28PM]

ya, like everything else doesn't play MP3s

[bob cobb @ Sep 14th 2008 12:51PM]

kinda worthless to buy xm hardware until they put out the units that can pick up sirius as well. Unless yours is broken or something. Im super anxious to see what they can do though, because XM always crushed sirius when it came to hardware.

[Striker @ Sep 14th 2008 12:46PM]

Dude, stop posting these links, nobody wants to go to your shit website, that is why we are reading Engadget, dumbshit.

[Bill @ Sep 14th 2008 1:02PM]

Just had to mention i've had the inno since it was available a few years ago and I don't think I could live without it. If Xm dropped a few channels and boosted to 96kb or 128kb streams there would almost be nothing to complain about.. maybe with the Sirius merger this will be something they will do.. Also the 1gb of space is good enough for many hours of xm recordings and quite a few mp3's.. again no complaints here.

[G @ Sep 14th 2008 1:29PM]

yes you could and then Ron and Fez Noon to Three !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mike @ Sep 14th 2008 3:58PM]

Still waiting for sirius/xm players on the market....

[Bob S. @ Sep 14th 2008 11:04PM]

Rather than work on storing MP3 and other files (I've got an iPod, thanks -- and even if you don't have an MP3 player, you can get 'em for $20 on woot.com almost every week), I'd really like a huge improvement on programming recordings. The 2.11 interface is awful. And there's no way to schedule repeating recordings. Five tuners is overkill; two or three would be enough.

But yes, there's no point anyway, because soon units will receive both systems. (I assume the multiple tuners on this is something of a prototype for units that receive both systems.) So I'll pass. I love my inno; my iPod can't introduce me to new music, and I can't follow pennant races with it.

[Owen @ Sep 25th 2008 11:16AM]

I have the Delphi MyFi - extremely happy even though I am also extremely desirous of new features. It has really gotten me through the last few years in terms of avoiding commercials:

You see music isn't the only thing that can be listened to: there is sports, news and talk shows (how-to, political, topical).

I can record them then when listening to the playback the scroll wheel shows the programming segments and the commercial segments listed by product so I can sorta easily go to the next programming segment very accurately with no rewinding/forwarding - it is exact.

Doesn't play mp3's though, I want that not only for music but for podcasts (and device consolidation).

I would not object to an auto-commercial-skip feature as pressing buttons and using scroll wheels while driving sucks basically.