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Product: XM2go Pioneer Inno
Price: $399.99
Rating: Good - 7.35/10.0
Pros: Can record live radio, sexy design, intuitive interface, car mount system.
Cons: Poor reception, limited 1 GB storage space, short battery life, lacking direct connect power input.
Overall:If you live in an area with great XM reception then this is the device for you, otherwise the Inno is an expensive MP3 player with limited satellite radio functionality, though it looks good while playing.

I’ll be honest I have been putting off this review for a while, not because I am lazy but rather that I was disappointed with this product: it failed to meet my very high expectations. I read many reviews of the XM Inno that while they were not stellar, nor were too negative: I wish I had the same experience. The Inno is made by Pioneer and shares essentially the same exact design and GUI interface as Samsung’s Helix; both models are designed and built for XM satellite radio. This is one of the nicest portable audio players you will ever hold but remember that besides spending $379+ on the device you also must be a XM subscriber for $12.95 per month.

Read on to see how the review broke down.

Design - 9 - If the player has a strong point it is hands down its design. I found the brush metal exterior, the 5-way navigational button on the front of the unit, the display, and the docking port to be far above average. The device also just feel great in your hand or pocket, perfectly weighted and the exactly the right size. When docked on its side the screen rotated 90 degrees as well as the button functionality. In between the screen and the 5-way direction pad are Mode, play/pause, and Disp buttons. When the player is on, the buttons illuminate blue, resulting in easy use in dark environments. The right side contains hold/power and volume switches. The power/hold button was also very accessible. The one negative is that the device lacks a dedicated power port, an adaptor is required when charging without the dock (just another example of how much this was intended to use an external antenna).

Features - 7.5 - I charged the Inno and got going right out of the box. You use the up and down arrows to scroll through channels and the center button to select (scrolling right changes channel categories). Pressing the Mode button lets you switch over to the MP3 player, which can play content recorded off of the radio or content loaded onto the device. While playing a song, pressing the center button calls up a menu of advanced features and controls so that you can record a song or a channel, bookmark a song for later reference, browse through your stored songs, create a playlist on the fly, or adjust settings. The Inno’s storage is partitioned at 50% for XM recordings and 50% for your own MP3 and WMA tracks (about 8 hours). This setting can be changed to devote all the limited space for XM providing 50 hours of recording, but remember that this will delete all stored content.

The Inno comes with a home dock to hookup to a stereo or other speakers as well as to attach an external antenna. It also came with a belt clip, earphones (in-ear buds), cables (RCA and USB), remote, home antenna, power adapter, XM+Napster CD, a product manual, and a replaceable battery.

Performance - 6 - While on the go, you need to use the Pioneer Inno’s included headphones, which are rather large and bulky and also don’t connect to a standard 1/8” jack. This headset contains the antenna needed to receive the signal on the go. I did not have a great reception experience in Indiana, driving from Indiana to NJ, in New Jersey outside, nor indoors. Each time I attached a external antenna be it the headphones or home antenna or car antenna and the signal tended to fade in and out repeatedly. I want to say that I have a faulty unit, it does happen, but have not yet confirmed it with XM/Pionner. I plan on bringing the Inno to NYC where there are many XM terrestrial repeaters as opposed to only relying on the satellites (i will update this review at that time). I got about 3.5-4 hours of battery life but I expect that searching for a signal drains the battery really fast. Recording content and playback of it was simple but I did do it by accident at times. A larger memory capacity would also be valuable so these devices can really compete with MP3 players but offer the added benefit of live programming on the fly.

Editors Note: The categories were weighted in the following manner to reflect the importance of some features over others. Design 30%, Features 30%, and Performance 40%.

Experiecne the Inno [XM]