laconic1

Now that I've had my Inno for awhile I realized I never posted a review.Here goes.

Pros.
I love the earbuds it comes with. They are the first ones I have used that don't fall out of my ears during use and they sound pretty good to my untrained ear.
The ability to record songs is great. The Inno has 1 gigabyte of storage, which can be partitioned to store all XM files or 50/50 XM and mp3. There have been so many songs that I would hear on the radio and like but not know who it was by or the song title, and thus I never bought the song. Now I can record any song I hear and have artist and title info so if I want to buy it later I actually know what to get. I have spent more money on music in the last three months than I had in the last five years because of this. Ironic when you consider the RIAA fought that feature from being implemented. Also if you are listening to a song and halfway through you realize you want to record it the Inno will still record the whole song. If you tune to a station in the middle of the song then decide to record at the end of the song the recording starts at the point you tuned to that station
It is easy to transfer mp3 files to the Inno in Windows XP. Just plug it in and Windows will let you copy files directly to it without needing any special software. I have not tried the bundled software to see how that worked for managing playlists or XM recorded content, which cannot be accessed through Windows Explorer.
It only takes one touch of a button to switch between live content and the Inno.

Cons.
I don't think the interface is very intuitive. You have to push three buttons to change to the very next station. Also the center button which is used for selecting stuff is too small.
Indoor reception when trying to use it portably is craptacular. When I use it portably indoors I either have to stay perfectly still, or I have to listen to
recorded content. The solution to this from what I have read is to buy some dorky looking Belkin antenna headphones for forty bucks. No thanks.
Maybe you have to use the bundled software to get this info, I don't know, but there is nothing on the Inno that indicates how much free space you have left.
Supposedly when the Inno is placed in a car dock you should be able to use the FM modulator. I have not been able to figure this out.


The Inno comes with a home stereo adapter kit with a dock, antenna, power cord and audio cord to connect to analog stereo RCA inputs. The car adapter which runs an additional seventy bucks comes with an antenna with 24 foot cord, dock, power adapter that plugs into a cigarette lighter, a cassette deck adapter, and a couple of adapters to mount the dock to the vehicle. I didn't care for the look of the big power adapter and cassette adapter, and all the wiring dangling around, so I also bought a power adapter that is hardwired into the vehicle's electrical system and an adapter that plugs into the auxiliary input on the back of my factory stereo, from xmfanstore.com. These cost about an additional ninety five dollars, plus about five bucks worth of materials from the home improvement store to make a better looking installation. I was disappointed at how much I spent to hook it up in my car, especially when you consider how pricey the Inno is to begin with. It has come down another fifty bucks since I bought it.

Overall I like the Inno. The reception problem really isn't the Inno's fault, after all, would you put a Directv dish in the middle of your living room? It's fairly small, slimmer than my old Zen Micro, and about the same length as most flip or slider cell phones, although it is about 3/8 of an inch wider than most cell phones. I don't know if I would buy it again, but I dont regret making the purchase either.