Customer Reviews

Sirius S50 Portable Satellite Radio Receiver with Car Pack

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(46)

 

 

I've waited for three months for the S50 to come out. I finally found one and had it installed professionally in my car. I love what the S50 can do, and I'm overall very pleased, but I have some problems with the S50. First the good stuff. It's a great design with an awesome LCD display. The station, artist and song are always visible. None of the scrolling stuff. The base has a rotating know to change channels, replay songs, press to record a song you like while it's playing and a host of other options. Very cool. The removable lightweight unit is about the size of 2/3 of a deck of playing cards. With this unit, you can remove it from your car, plug in the headphones and play your downloaded MP3's and recorded content from sirius. The rechargeable battery is supposed to last around six hours. I haven't drained it yet. It recharges automatically when plugged into the base unit. Additionally, it will automatically download music from your three most listened to stations...ingenius. Also, if you like a song you're listening to, you simply press the rotating knob, and the song is recorded for you onto the portable unit...awesome! Additionally, if you like a song you just heard, you can click the knob, and it plays again. You can then skip ahead to the current song playing or keep listening. You can also pause the broadcast and unpause without a hitch. As you turn the knob to change channels, a voice tells you what channel you're selecting which is a cool feature if you want to keep watching the road.

I love the selection of music that is available for my taste (alternative stuff). Some stations are lame, the all Elvis channel or all Bruce Springstine channel for example, but that's a matter of taste. Besides, there's plenty to choose from no matter what your taste in music.

And now, the bad stuff. 1) I was disappointed with the sound quality. I would describe the quality as somewhere between good FM radio and AM. Voices often sound like they're speaking or singing through a tin can. I thought it may have been the FM broadcaster in the unit, but when I play MP3's in the car through the unit, they sound great, so I guess it's not enough band width in the broadcasts. 2) The portable unit does not have an equalizer option. You can't adjust the bass or treble which even the cheapest MP3 players have. That was poor oversight on their part. 3) My biggest gripe is that the removable unit will sometimes vibrate loose, causing a loss in the transmission. This is very annoying, but I'm getting used to tapping my unit from time to time to prevent it. I think part of the problem there is that my unit was installed so that it lies in a flat position. I may have to get that changed, despite the fact that I love the way it's positioned right now. Sirius should have designed it so that the unit locks in. However, when you lose the signal (not from the unit vibrating loose), the voice asks if you'd like to switch to downloaded content which can be done very easily.
UPDATE: I had the unit re-installed so that it's not flat, no problem now with the unit slipping out.

Moreover, I'm very pleased with the S50. If you're aware of sound quality issue I'd definitely recommend the unit.

First off, let me say that I view the current S50 as a prototype. I think they rushed to market in order to have the product available by the time Stern started broadcasting. The fact that none of the accesories (including the home dock) are available yet shows that this product was rushed. The bugs and missing features, too, indicate a rushed release. Wait a few months and you will probably see prices drop, reliability increase, and features added.

Missing features: (1) There are no audio settings (not even the omnipresent "bass boost"). It should be against the law at this point to release a product like this without at least some sort of rudimentary equalizer. I have found the sound to be very poor largely because of this. The bass is lacking and the highs sound tinny. (2) If you are listening to one of your automatically recorded favorite channels in playback mode and leave the playback and return, you do not return to the point where you left (even if you don't turn the player off). You must start at the beginning of the recording and cycle through the tracks to find your spot. Remember those old CD players that started at the beginning of the disk each time you turned the player on? Would you buy one today? (3) Can I get a small keypad on the dock so I can change channel without using the dial? Come on, Sirius has almost 200 channels. I'm supposed to scroll through them one at a time? True, the remote has a keypad, but I will lose that thing. (4) Unlike your Tivo or DVR (which this unit is constantly compared to), the unit has only one tuner. That means that you can not listen to live radio while recording another channel. Why would you need to record a show that you listened to live? (5) Also unlike Tivo and DVR, the unit will not turn itself on for a scheduled recording. That means, if you want to record Howard Stern in the morning while you are still asleep, you'll have to leave the unit on all night. If you were able to track down a home unit during the limited release in December or you have purchased a DC/AC adaptor, you can just leave your S50 on at home. If you only use yours in the car you will find your battery dead and will be calling AAA for a jump start if you leave this thing on all night.

Design flaws: (1) The designers thought it would be cool to have the top of the player shaped like a triangle instead of sitting flush like every other MP3 player. Thats no problem if you only want to listen with the provided headphones (which suck), but if you want to use aftermarket headphones, the 1/8 jack for many will be to big to fit (the housing of the jack, not the jack itself of course). (2) The unit frequently freezes up and fails to respond to any commands. You have to remove the battery and wait ten seconds before reinstalling it in order to "reset" the unit. (3) Six hours of battery life? Thats at the low end of what I would consider exceptable. That is not a huge problem now, but what about a year from now when the battery begins to lose its charge and only holds, say four hours? (4) The interface is anything but intuitive and needs some major tuning. Example: the "Shut off Device" option is in the Setup Menu. Every time I turn this thing off I feel like I'm about to make a major change in the way the device functions. (5) Unlike most players, which have a full-time display, the screen on this unit goes black unless you have recently touched a button. I don't need the screen to glow all the time, I just want the text of the song on the screen so I know what I'm listening to. Only the backlight should shut off when the unit is "idle." You can go into "display settings" and change the screen to always be on, but since the backlight will always be on, this will drain the already inadequate battery.

I could go on, but I want to wrap this up. I give this product three stars instead of two or one because it is such a great idea. Finally, we can save large amounts of satellite radio content and play it back on a portable. Also, if you want to listen to Stern, but don't have the time to catch the show live, this is the only thing to buy.

Would I buy it again? No, not even at a lower price. My advice is wait and see what comes next. This is a new idea, using new technology. Things will only get better from here on. Wait a few months rather than blowing $350 on a prototype that never should have left the Quality Control Department in its current condition.

Update: Sirius issued a software patch for this unit. Now you can fast-forward through recorded material (before you could only skip tracks), schedule recordings for music shows in addition to talk shows, and save more individual songs to your "my sirius songs" folder.

My advice stays the same. Wait for the next generation S50. It will undoubtedly have two tuners, an equalizer, better sound, and will lack the bugs in this unit. Or, you can buy my S50 used on Amazon.com the day the next generation comes out(I will definitely be upgrading).

Second Update: Today is 2/9/06. My S50 is dead. All of the sudden it stopped receiving live broadcasts today. I turn it on while docked and all I get is the startup sound and the Sirius logo screen; then the unit freezes up. Now this thing is basically an Ipod with bad battery life and poor navigation. Luckily I have an extended warranty...

I bought this primarily for the Tivo-like recording feature and that's a huge disappointment. If you want to record a full Howard Stern show, forget it. It's not designed to record that many hours and it rarely records the full amount it's supposed to. Show are almost always incomplete - or the device frequently crashes! I've had to remove the battery multiple times because it was frozen.

If you're a Mac user, there's no software interface fo the MP3 functions.

The sound quality is pretty mediocre, even with full signal strength.

Given the cost (don't forget to add $100 to be able to use it at home) and the mediocre performance, don't buy this.

Anyone giving this product less than 4 stars is Ignorant and/or bitter, because they spent over 300 bucks on something they didn't research or don't know how to use. NO it does not get live broadcast without being docked (either in your car or in your home) But it doesn't claim to!, and NO you can not set up a recording segment (longer than simply recording one song) for any of the music stations(but this isn't nearly as important as i originally thought it would be)

Let me tell you what it can do. I've had mine for a little over a day now so I'm not an expert YET but i have gotten pretty familiar with the product. The most important/impressive thing that this product does (which has been overlooked by or atleast not explained clearly by anyone YET) is the "MY sirius Channels" function. Your S50 will "automatically" ( I left my unit on and docked while I went to sleep) record content from your most listened to channels...which in my case was the channel that i left it on while i was sleeping. when i checked my s50 in the morning i had 5+ hours of Quasi recorded content "saved" under "my sirius channels" I sorted through the saved content which coulden't be more convieniet ( you can FF RW Pause and if you like/choose Record and the greatest part is you don't even have to listen to the full song to record it you can simply hit the "love" button to record, then hit the ff button once and you are skipped ahead to the next song, and yes the one you recorded is saved in your memory. Using this technique I was able to save 68 songs worth of material in about an hour or so (that represents about 20% of the memory for the unit. Tonight I'll let the S50 "automatically" record more music for me and then tomorrow i'll record and save only what i want and delete the rest, which will make room for the S50 to "automatically" record some new content for me to browse through.

Everything else about what this product can do is explained pretty well in the product specs or at [...] I wanted to explain about the recording function b/c this is what seperates this product from other music players. As far as docking your S50 with your computer and using the software goes, it's pretty simple and easy to work with. However if you are used to using Itunes you will realize that "my sirius studio" (the media player used to store and manage your music files on your pc) is incredibly basic but so far has worked w/o problems...(I was also able to transfer MP3's to my S50 via this software.

I won't say much about the looks b/c by now you've seen pics...i'll only say that those pictures are surely justified.
Yeah it's a lot of money...but it does things an Ipod can't dream of ...If you are REALLY into music and are sick either the songs on your Ipod or commercials on the radio...You'll love sirius and the S50

Ok I'm a big Howard Stern fan so I had to get the S-50. Let me start by saying the most important thing, for those people who are complaining about not getting the home kit, I have a brilliant suggestion: GO BUY A 5-VOLT AC ADAPTER. That's all you need. I too was pissed when I found out that the home dock wasn't even available, and I am planning on only listening to it at home, but then I realized all you need to do is go buy an adapter and you can plug the "car kit" in at home too. Genius, huh? Anyways, on to the review of the radio...

UPDATE: I forgot to include that with the car kit, you will not only need a 5-volt adapter, but you will need something thick and VERY metallic, like a cookie sheet or a pie tray to attach the "car magnet". This is a rather crude but cheap way to replace the total lack of supply of the home docks.

So far so good. Sucks that you can't adjust bass/treble, but the fact that this thing is not only a satellite radio, but also an .MP3 player makes up for this drawback. You can record any song or program you want. Another awesome feature. I, like everyone else, was disappointed when I found out it's not really "portable" with live content, only with the stuff you have recorded onto it. The good, the bad.. and the ugly. The ugly part being that the Sirius software on the computer is buggy as hell. I put some .mp3s on it, and before I know it, the software bugs out and won't run. I had to uninstall it, and re-install it many many times. I'm not the only one who has had this problem either, so I recommend that you put the .mp3s on there that you really want for a long time to avoid this hassle. All complaints aside though, this is a great piece of technology and the pros outweigh the cons. Lots of people are pissed, but most of them are using it in their cars, and since I'm not driving with it, I don't have a problem.

In short, the fact that I can play .mp3s on the same device that I can listen to Howard Stern and Eminem's satellite channels on makes this a wonderful Christmas present and I'm pretty happy with it. But if you have a car, you might want to think about getting a different Sirius radio, one that's a little more reliable through speed bumps, weather, and lots of engine restarts. From what I've read it flakes out a lot in the car, and if you're just using it to drive, why not play your songs on your regular CD player and buy a cheaper Sirius radio just for the satellite?

Here are my thoughts on the S50 Sirius with the car pack (and some on the whole set with the home docking station):

-You can NOT use the 1GB for MP3s, I tried it, and Sirius Studio gave me an error message, explaining that my "personal usage" limit is indeed 512MB!!!! I suppose the rest is reserved for Sirius? (Probably so they can guarantee the pause and love-button functions) No matter what I actually want on MY device??? Oh yea, and a tiny bit (insignificant, but worth mentionining) is used for the flash OS.
-It may be me, but I didn't find another way but to use Sirius My Studio to transfer songs onto the device, which is INCREDIBLY SLOW, instead of just copy/past files like a flash memory stick or so. You can do that, but for some reason, no matter into which folder I dropped the files, the device doesn't find the files.
-The My Sirius Studio software uses at least 40 MB of your working memory, which for some computers is a WHOLE lot and might slow your computer down. You can download the software for free on Sirius' website.
-YOU WILL NEED A DOCKING STATION TO ACCESS RADIO! THERE IS NO PORTABLE SIRIUS RADIO S50! If you don't hook it up to a docking station, you will only have mp3s or what you may or may not have recorded off Sirius before. It comes with the car docking station, in my op a way to make money, since I will be at home when I first unpack it, and I may not even want or need a car station...or have a car for that matter. So for home use and to use it like you may think you could, you will have to find (they're sold out often times) and buy (100 Smackeroos) a home docking station on top of the S50!
-Nice portability, buttons take time to get used to.
-Good locking slide switch.
-Battery should last you a day good, charges 1-4 hours (depending on what you hook it up to).
-Pretty lightweight.
-Solid belt clip, though they should have left a hole to plug the transfer/charge cable in...but this way no dirt gets in, also a good thing I guess.
-For some reason, after pausing it shuts down and you have to start the whole thing over, but that may be me, I just started using it.
-You cannot record Sirius off the internet. Not all Sirius stations are on the web!
-I like the sound quality, though no options except volume.
-No optical or digital line-out, you'll have to use the pc-link on the home docking station for that.
-Comes with all the car parts...but they are car parts. Haven't used it in the car yet, as I don't have a car right now. (See above)
-Other people report problems regarding: if you record a show, it will not separate tracks, so it's all or nothing; single tracks may be cut/interferred with; some odd time limit on what you can download; so far no way to transfer Sirius songs onto the computer, which would probably put iTunes out of business with Sirius customers;
-Nice packing, looks, service there, but not always competent with regard to the details.
-Home docking station is tiny and nicely looking, great sound, but that's the least you can ask for your money.
-Car adapter tiny (a little box, about an 1.5 in cube), but the usual cable/antenna nonsense to dangle around your car...but good thing you program your car radio to the Sirius and don't need to plug in and install any nonsense.


-Once you invested all that money (USD240 or so for the device, 100 for the home station, one-year subscription), here's what you get: Crystal clear (beware of steel concrete, that will block most waves) radio with a vast array of stations, styles, and categories; great celebrity djs, howard (if you care) with his team, two stations to himself; the love button lets you record that song you love but don't know the name of with a button across the room thanks to the remote; and they do play some rarer and more unusual stuff than your average station (at least for the music styles I know), though your recording may have a dj babbeling sometimes, they don't do that often, but hey, it's radio; service radio like traffic, sports; news and weather (who needs TV anymore?); many ways to combine stereo, pc, and s50, with enough in/out combinations to satisfy most appetites; sleek design, good functionality; even if you are out of radio reach (play with the antenna, shouldn't be a problem to pick up a signal) you switch over and listen to your 100+ songs on the s50; good sound quality (well, what did you high-end fanatics out there expect?); good portability and quick setup (set up the home station in a friend's room for a week, took me 10 mins); multi-language stations, check listings, but Korean, Spanish, and others I know for sure; a good browse function (browse stations or genres or favorites while listening to radio or mp3s); for the blind users: audio supported menu (also nice if you don't want to take your hands out of your pockets).

-The bottom line:
I got it as a gift and love it, it is a ton of fun and will me help get rid of TV, but after we figured all the pitfalls, neither my girlfriend nor I would have bought it again. After all, it works differently from what they make it sound like. I know I will enjoy it greatly, and at least Sirius is good enough to let you pause subscriptions and things like that when you're traveling or so. Only buy it if you really have the money, though, but if you are looking for a new toy, I could see this complementing many people's life-styles easily.


Update 2008:
Well, years later, it is still going. Reception indoors is so-so, but I am too lazy to climb on the roof for ideal antenna placement. I am, as many users (see Sirius Backstage S50 forum), paranoid about firmware updates, and am way behind, but oh well, never change a running system. I still enjoy recording random stations over night and listening to them, battery drains more quickly because the Sirius recordings are way more complicated to decode and play back for the machine than mp3s. That's also why the radio can record ten or twenty HOURS of radio music!!! Would be better without the DJs or Sirius announcements, but oh well.
All in all I don't regret learning how to use it and I keep using it. A boombox would probably have been better, but this is WAY more portable, and after using it as an MP3 for two years constantly, I can't say all too many bad things about it's performance here either.

People complain about the live reception, and while I would LIKE live reception, I'm willing to give that up for what this device offers. However this device fails on basic design levels... I'm highly disapointed.

The designers spent so much time on bells and whistles, they obviously forgot what people REALLY want. It's not about the flashy design, or a color display, it's about usability.

However, before I bash the unit, I'll tell you what i LIKE about it:

Likes:

- I like the integration as an MP3 player. I can store my favorite songs and CD's. Depending on my mood, I have the flexibility to listen to what i want, when I want.

- Love button is a nice feature.. however you can't use it on scheduled programs. You have to be live, or listening to "my sirius channels" while in the dock to use it. Prerecorded programming is the same as on the XM2GO.

- Sirius programming... I generally prefer it to XM

- Dock mount has a flexible mount so that it will fit curved interiors and dashboards. You can put the unit where you want it.

- ability to mix/match sirius and personal collection into playlists

- I love the "my sirius channels" function. It records even when you're using the MP3 player. However, as a drawback, it only records when you're on one of your three most used channels.. and it has to be on to record. It only records what it's tuned to.. Being that it only comes with a car dock, if you have a 40 minute commute, when you get to work, you'll have the same 40 minutes of programming you just listed to!

Now, my Dislikes.

- No presets: Yes, the Amazon description says that it provides for up to 30 "one touch" presets. Not true! Presets are like a favorite channel lists.. you can set up to thirty channels to "browse" through. You have to use that bulky knob(or the buttons on the remote, which I prefer) to browse through your 30 favorites one at a time. This is like having a sportster and skipping all the channels you don't like, then browsing through them. In short, there are NO presets on this device. I had hoped you could use the numbers on the remote as one touch presets, but this is not the case.

- To get TO your presets, you have to hit the magnifying glass button three times. Your system does not remember this, you MUST do this each time you turn it on, so the "skip channels" actually works better for me. Just a plain horrible design, even the starmates offer this sort of functionality! Just horrible!

- No "multiple line" list of what's playing - Another feature I love on the sportster and XM2go units is the ability to list your channels to see what artist/song is on 6 at a time by presets or genre. This IS how I use a sattelite radio, I list all my favorites on the screen at once(well, you do have to scroll down to see 7-10) and select from there. Take this away, and it takes away a lot of the functional fun of Sat Radio.

- Knob is a pain to use, and feels cheap. The heave click feel when rotating slows down tuning(not fast like on the Sportster). And Why not use this thing like a joystick? No, you have to rotate the knob to make menu selections. I can get around this by using the remote control, which i use the knob design is so poorly used. The whole unit is not very intuitive.

- Why have talking navigation? I care more about what's playing than what channel I'm on. If i had presets, I wouldn't need to look to know where I was... and by the time it tells you, you've already seen/heard that the song is one you like or not. It gets in the way. I'd rather have cut this functionality and added something useful(presets? live reception?)

- Color Display: Looks nice.. but WHY? At this time you can't show video, sure you can customize your startups or backgrounds. The negatives are big.. it eats battery live, and it has to shut itself off to conserve powere. A B&W LCD could be on all the time. And it's all i want OR need. An expensive and useless gadget. Spleaking of conserving power:

- Battery life sucks

- Lack of ability to "love" a song from the My Sirius Channels option when out of the dock. When I hear something I like, i have to dock the unit and find it again to save it.

- The unit will lock up at times.. mine hasn't been as bad as some others, but often when "undocked" the system won't shut down. I have to reseat the battery to get it to shutdown at times. If I don't do this, the battery will drain before I'm ready to use it.

- I have to say it... I knew it wasn't there, but EVERYONE wants live reception. Where I work, I have a very strong Sirius repeater. I could listen to it at work.. live. I've used an XM2GO at the same location, and it works great with a weaker signal. To claim as Sirius does that this it's not what consumers want is crazy talk. The idea that they wouldn't have such a unit available with Howard went online was a poor decision, and will end up hurting them. They are offering internet streaming, but this is often against internet use policies.

All this being said, though I'm firm on my 2 stars, I'm considering living with it for the IPOD functionality. However, I'm also considering just using a sportster and getting an IPOD for less money. I've very disapointed in Sirius, they just don't get it. XM had a better feel for what people are looking for in hardware and it's a shame because Sirius has a better idea of what programming people want.

Purchase with care!

The S50 is a piece of crap. It is not a well thought out design. Having the controls on the side...bad idea. Every time I grab the device I push a button. If you are listening to a recorded program when the device is on the cradle and pull the device off the cradle the device turns off and you have to start all over again. The rewind and forward function...If you record a show that is 2 hours long and only want to listen to the last 10 minutes you'll need to slowly and carefully rewind through the whole show 10 seconds at a time. And don't double press the button because you'll jump to the next program. It Only records 2 hours at a time not 4 hours as advertised. Too many other problems to list, but these are the ones that bug me the most.

For some people--but not all--the SIRIUS S50 is likely the very best choice for a SIRIUS radio. Is it for you? If you do a lot of music listening outside of your car and outside of your home and away from your computer, the S50 is going to become your new best friend.

Basically, the S50 is ideal for you if you love satellite radio and you also love listening to an IPOD (or any other quality MP3 player). Everything you can do with an IPOD, you can also do with the S50: PLUS with the S50 you can RECORD satellite radio music to take with you in your pocket. The S50 holds up to 50 hours of either recorded satellite radio and/or any combination of your other downloaded MP3 music or podcasts. That's the reason for the name S50: the device allows you to carry with you up to 50 HOURS of recorded content.

The SIRIUS S50 is a real work of art: The S50 definitely has big "wow!" and big "cool!" from top to bottom. If you are out and about wearing an S50, you will likely get some attention from the curious and the JEALOUS.

If you are happy enough listening to satellite radio just in the car or at home, I would instead recommend the following SIRIUS radios, which are a LOT less expensive and have larger displays: Starmate Replay (see my separate AMAZON review), Sportster, Audiovox PNP3 (see my separate AMAZON review), or XACT Visor (see my separate AMAZON review).

BOTTOM LINE: For what it is designed to do, the SIRIUS S50 succeeds in a big way. It works well,and sounds GREAT!

Purchased this on December 4, activated on December 11, broken by December 28.
Nice looking unit, neat idea the few times it actually works.There is an entire forum devoted to problems with the S50 at Siruis Backstage. Make sure to read it before you puchase this. The number of problems listed is astounding.
I'm fairly comfortable with most tech devices, but there is no way to figure out all the quirks on this.
Good luck with getting help on their service lines. People are polite, but little knowledge of the many bugs with this system. Most advice re fixing was incorrect.
It amazes me that something like this was released. Compare to the iPOD...difference is astounding.
Ultimately returned mine after Sirius refused to replace. Would only send a refubished unit. What a waste. They should be ashamed.