Enter a new style of satellite radio device: a portable that doesn't actually get live content. You see, the Sirius S50 receives a live satellite stream only when it's plugged into a car or home dock and connected to a satellite antenna. When you're carrying the S50, it plays recorded content, as well as MP3 and WMA files. Leave it turned on and tuned while docked and it'll happily fill all its 1GB of space with recorded content, with nothing more to set, so that you can listen to it later.
The idea left us cold at first, but after testing it, we've warmed to the concept. If you're listening to a music channel, it doesn't matter whether it's live. Plus, listening to recorded content gives you the option of fast-forwarding though songs you don't like. Tne S50 isn't for everyone; its several limitations (more on those later) and its steep price will keep many away. Still, we think the Sirius S50 should find an enthusiastic audience, especially among car commuters. Samsung's Nexus is a similar MP3/satellite radio device for the XM service.
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
The Sirius S50 is available only with a car dock, and the combo lists for a steep $329.99. A Sirius representative told us that the vast majority of satellite radio listeners listen in the car. A home dock costs $99.99. This inflexible bundling is a major hurdle for anyone who wants the S50 purely for home or portable use.
The car kit, which we didn't use for testing, holds the Sirius S50 upright along the dashboard and includes an FM transmitter for listening to songs through your car's stereo. The large and spongy five-way navigation control is easy enough to use while driving. It also offers audio navigation, which speaks the names of the channels and setting screens as you turn to them so that you don't have to take your eyes off the road for long while using it. The car combo also includes headphones and a belt clip for portable use, as well as a USB cable for connecting to a Windows 2000 or XP PC.
The home kit, which we did use, has a matching black dock that features a large tilt button for selecting options. Either kit can connect to your PC via a USB 2.0 connection (cable included) so that you can load your own MP3 or WMA tracks, manage the S50's content, or download firmware updates. Sirius has already released a crucial update that broadens the S50's recording options so that you can schedule recordings of music channels, not just talk channels. We're disappointed that neither dock has numbered buttons for quickly tuning in a station; you'll need to scroll to them.
Both the car and home kit include a slim remote--apparently for backseat passengers, in the case of the car kit.
The satellite-radio-based Sirius S50's features seem odd at first since they're mostly built around saving content for later use instead of live streaming. However, we found that they work well as long as you remember to record the content you want.When in the car or home dock, the Sirius S50 functions much like any other satellite radio receiver, although it has some handy extras. Click the heart icon while a song is playing to store not just the title and artist info, as with other receivers, but the whole tune. It's then added to your song list and is available any time you want. You can also pause live streams, which seems ideal for talk radio or entertainment. All in all, though Sirius has been a step behind competitor XM in terms of subscribers, the $12.95-per-month service is robust, with more than 120 channels, including virtually every musical genre; talk shows; NFL, NHL, and NBA broadcasts; and of course, Howard Stern.
The Sirius S50 has 1GB of storage (a bit low for an MP3 player), and half that can be used for your own tracks downloaded from a PC. These can be either MP3 or WMA songs, and the player supports WMA DRM 9, so you can load purchased songs but not subscription content. The other half of the storage space--or all of it, if you don't manually load any tracks--is for Sirius content. The S50 keeps track of the three music stations you listen to the most and automatically records content while on and tuned to that station. Sirius content is in a proprietary compressed format and at a variable bit rate. When the S50 is full of recorded Sirius content, you'll have approximately 50 hours of music. You can use the settings to delete a channel that you don't want automatically recorded but not to set a channel, which we find too limiting.
Getting automatically recorded content requires having your Sirius S50 on and docked; if you have only a car connection, you must record content while driving and listening. We loved leaving it on at night with the home dock, then getting hours of fresh new content in the morning, but that requires an extra purchase. You can also set timed recordings on the S50, as long as it's connected to a dock. Recordings can't be longer than two hours--another irritating limitation.
When you're using the S50 away from a dock, you have the option of listening to three types of recordings: songs manually added, scheduled Sirius recordings, or favorite-channel recordings that the player creates by itself. You can listen to anything on the go except live content. If you want that, look to the Delphi MyFi XM2Go or the Pioneer AirWare XM2Go, which both work with competitor XM Satellite Radio.
The Sirius S50 comes with a one-year limited warranty. The Web site list a toll-free number and has an e-mail form for customer care.
Using the Sirius S50's controls can be awkward since the right-side buttons take care of different tasks depending on which menu you're in. We never quite got the hang of them, often having to go back and select the correct item the second time. The sound quality is surprisingly good for recorded, highly compressed content, and the included earbuds don't look like much but provide a well-rounded sound, with good clarity and enough bass.The S50's biggest drawback is its battery life, which is a big minus if you use it as a portable player. It's rated for a low 6 hours of battery life, but we got only 4 hours, 15 minutes of use playing Sirius recorded content with the screen dark the whole time. That's way too short when you have 50 hours of music to get through. In our opinion, a portable device should get 12 hours just to get into the average range. If you can't listen to it all day undocked, it's not much of a portable.
The battery is replaceable, although Sirius doesn't currently sell spares. Look for them to become available in the near future.