Sirius goes portable with the Wi-Fi-enabled Stiletto 100

Details of the oft-hinted Sirius portable have been leaked on the Web. The as-yet-unannounced Sirius Stiletto 100 is prominently featured in a catalog that's been mailed out from online retailer Crutchfield. According to information listed in the catalog, the Stiletto can stream Sirius channels from the company's satellites or via Wi-Fi. Storage capacity isn't specified, but the unit is said to be able to record up to 100 hours of Sirius programming. It's also a full-service digital music player, with half the total storage space available for storing your MP3 and WMA files (although, because MP3 and WMA files are encoded at higher bit rates than the satellite recordings, that will amount to far less than 50 hours' worth). And, because it's compliant with Microsoft's Plays For Sure digital rights management, the Stiletto offers compatibility with a variety of subscription music services. The Stiletto comes bundled with a car kit, two rechargeable batteries (a smaller standard battery and a larger extended-life one), and earbud headphones with a built-in antenna (but the marketing blurb specifies that the player's body includes a built-in antenna as well, so we're assuming it will work with any standard headphones). The whole setup will cost $399.99, and a home docking station with an FM transmitter will be available separately, as will a dedicated speaker dock.

If the Stiletto details are accurate (and there's every indication that they are), it looks to fill what's been a gaping hole in the Sirius hardware lineup. The company's previous portable offering, the S50, was essentially an MP3 player that offered the ability to listen to and record live satellite radio only when it was docked. By comparison, the XM-enabled Pioneer Inno and Samsung Helix delivered live satellite radio on the go in a tiny and slick-looking package. The Stiletto finally answers XM's portable challenge, and its inclusion of a Wi-Fi streaming option (for the same $400 list price of the XM models) ups the ante--both for XM and for Apple, the latter of which hasn't released a new iPod model in months.

According to the rumor mill, the Sirius Stiletto 100 will be available for sale in late September. We'll have a full review when it hits, along with any official announcements from Sirius as soon as they become available.

Source: Sirius Backstage via Orbitcast via Gizmodo

Photo credit: Orbitcast