Taylor of TSS-Radio sent his Pioneer XMp3 to me today and I've run it through the paces, so here is my review.
The packaging is pretty much the same as it is with most of the Sirius XM Radios, nothing really special at all.
The XMp3 comes with the radio, home kit, antenna, earphones, power supply, usb cable and remote.
Since I have an Delphi XM Personal Repeater I didn't make use of the included antenna. One thing I noticed right off the bat. The power is off the left side, the audio off the back and the antenna plugs into the right side. (This is if you are looking at the home dock from the front) The dock is small, but it just seems odd to me that they they separated all these plug-ins. However, the power adapter does have a nice 90 degree angle and so does the included home antenna so for most this should not be an issue.
I then docked the radio and powered it up. Powering On... followed by Pioneer, followed by the XM power on logo.... Contact, Houston we have sat radio. I didn't have to activate because Taylor had already done this.
Immediately I noticed the display was really bright and crisp, much like the XpressRC just smaller. I quickly scrolled through the menus and options. I have to admit initially it was a bit confusing. I am so use to just scrolling on the Stiletto SL2 and getting the list of channel. This happens too, but if you hit the left and right buttons you don't get categories. In order to get to categories you have to dive into the menu.
You go to menu (XM) and you'll see (Pic Below)
Favorite Channels
All Channels
All Categories
XM Highlights
Schedule Recording
I personally find the SL2 method of being able to hit the left and right buttons on the wheel much more intuitive. This is certainly not a deal killer.
Recording; you can do scheduled recording, auto recordings, along with recording individual songs. The schedule recording is really simple just go into the menu to Schedule Recording and plug in the information, the XMp3 will handle it from there. Auto Recordings, you can select up to 5 channels that you want it to record and it will then continue to select channels based on your listening habits to add. Like when I got it from Taylor it had Playboy Channel (uh we know what Taylor listens too LOL) along with Howard Stern. I added XM Gore to see how it works, you can add and remove your specified auto record channels.
Now the COOL FACTOR; which is that while listening to one channel it is recording into your favorites at the same time. Which means you always have plenty of recording content. This is a big improvement over the SL100 and SL2 which only records what is actually playing, though you can listen to the Library. The other really COOL FACTOR; View Programs, you can actually go to Options click View Programs and it will give you a list of programs that are coming up and what time they start. If you click on one of these you can also schedule it to record, get an alert when it comes on or read more information about it. NOW HOW COOL IS THAT?
The Library for recorded content is very nice, you can review it by channel, category, artist, auto recordings, date and time, playlist or all songs.
You can add a microSDHC card they claim up to 8GB, but I know the SL2 will currently support up to 16GB, so that is probably true for the XMp3. One thing you'll notice is that the XMp3 unlike the SL2 loads the information off the card in the background and doesn't give any indications that the card is installed or make you wait 5 minutes while it reads the card. A much better implementation.
Like with previous XM radios you can do the stock and sports ticker or is that tickler.. hehe. I am sure MM would know.
In the menu under settings you can set EQ Settings (I didn't find these were very good except for Max Boost), Change the Display (Brightness and Back-light time out), Edit Alerts (Tune Select, Game Select, Programs Turn Alerts On and Off), Info Extra (this is where you set the sports and stock ticker), Channel Access (Direct Tune on and off, Channel skip and add, xL channels on or off), Auto Recordings (On or Off), Line Level, Antenna Aiming, Set Time, Restore Defaults, Memory Usage.
One other thing on the display. If you select it to 15, 30 or even 1 minutes it will go into a very low light mode, which is very good for night time.
There is also a Keypad button where you can go in and punch in direct channel numbers to jump immediately to a certain channel. I really like this.
Overall I think the Pioneer XMp3 is a really nice radio. The display is one of the best I've seen on an XM radio, the menus are a bit confusing but once you get it down it is okay. Recording is fantastic and of course the COOL FACTORS as mentioned above is just icing on the cake. I can see that this would be a very nice tuner to have. It is a bit pricey at $279, plus if you want to use it in your vehicle you would need to buy a car kit, unless you opted to just listen to recorded content much like the Slacker G2.
Now pictures below: I didn't really take a lot of pictures of the XMp3, but I did take some caparison pictures using the iPod Touch, Stiletto SL2, Slacker G2 and of course the Pioneer XMp3.
Comments and discussion IS welcome. Enjoy!
XMp3 Review
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