SIRIUS Stiletto 2 Portable Satellite Radio with MP3 Player
by Sirius Satellite Radio
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of SIRIUS Stiletto 2 Portable Satellite Radio with MP3 Player
Customer Review: Great when it works
Summary: 3 Stars
I've had the Stiletto 2 for over a year now. I should say I'm on my 5th replacement Stiletto in the past year. I have had to send it back four times because there were issues with its performance. One thing that ticked me off was I was having a problem with it so I called Sirius Customer Service They guy told me to connect my Stiletto to my laptop and do a software upgrade. Halfway through the upgrade, I happened to mention to the rep, "This does work with Vista 64 bit, doesn't it?" and the guy said "Oh, No". My Stiletto was frozen and I had to send it in for a replacement. You would think CS would ask you what operating system you are using before you start an upgrade that's going to completely screw up your Stiletto. Their customer service is horrendous! If you can get someone that can speak English, you are lucky. I feel that I know more than they do. I recently purchased an IPhone 3GS and have been using Pocket Tunes ever since. You can get Howard Stern on that plus all the other Sirius stations. It's like internet radio on the Stiletto, and it works great. How can we get Howard on Pocket Tunes, but can't get him on the Sirius app on the IPhone. Doesn't make sense to me. I actually told a Sirius rep that they need to take customer service lessons from Apple. Apple CS people are great and very knowledgable. This device is really great when it works. The sound is great and has a lot of great features. They need to work on it. You would think they are losing a ton of money having to replace all these Stilettos. They should make it right the first time instead of having to send replacements all the time.Customer Review: Waste of Money!!!
Summary: 1 Stars
This piece of crap is the biggest waste of money ever. I returned this thing 4 times for a warranty swap and I would have kept swapping it if the warranty didn't run out. This useless piece of trash will spontaneously delete your saved music/radio shows for no reason. This happens once every 4 to 6 weeks. Nothing is more fun that to tape 20 hours of radio shows with the anticipation of enjoying almost one full day of listening pleasure only to have it stroke out on you and leave you with nothing. Then you have the pleasure of erasing and resetting the unit so that it will start working correctly again. Until it decides to soil itself again, of course. Then you can reload all of your favorite channels again, which is an entertaining activity to engage in once every month or two. On top of that the slimy creeps at Sirius will automatically renew your 2 year contract WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION so that you can immerse yourself in another 2 years of lousy service. What a pleasure! On top of all that, this hunk of junk is about as technically advanced as "Pong". It can't record on one channel and play a different channel at the same time. It can't record to the micro-sd card. The user interface is clumsy at best. The only thing good about this meadow muffin is the battery life. Have you noticed that they have not introduced any new portable models in over 3 years? That's because Sirius is going to spiral rapidly down the toilet in 2 months after Howard leaves. I take great pleasure in knowing that Sirius will fade into obscurity in the very near future.Customer Review: Surprised by the reviews. I'm in love with this thing!
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm really surprised by the handful of negative reviews on here. I have been a long time Sirius user and have just recently upgraded to the Stiletto 2 after a car break-in led to the loss of my old radio.
Switching to the Stiletto 2 has really changed the way I use Sirius. The DVR like capabilities (rewind, record songs, record shows) has done for my radio what TiVo has done for my television viewing.
Due to recent FCC regulations the FM transmitter has led to signal quality loss when broadcasting from the Stilleto to your car radio but a $30 direct FM adapter solves this problem entirely. When you hear people speak of "reception issues" it has nothing to do with the satellite signal but rather their own broadcast to their radio. This fixes the problem. In most cars you can self install this in a few minutes. In my truck it took a 15 minute audio shop install because I had to get behind the radio.
My daily use of the Stiletto usually starts with the recording of my favorite show before I even wake up. I can then listen, pause, fastforward, etc until I get to work. Then I pop the head phones on and head inside and listen to the rest of the show.
An internal MicroSD card allows you to expand the MP3 player capabilities and can give you iPhone/iTouch/Ipod-Nano like storage.
The MP3 player is suprisingly intuitive (better than my iRiver). Overall I could not go back to a standard radio or even a non-Stiletto radio after a few months with this product.
Customer Review: Sirius got serious
Summary: 4 Stars
Since my original review below, I think Sirius may have done an upgrade to their satellite. I have been able to move the radio to my bedroom and even get a signal in a few spots indoors without having an antenna attached. I can record on the radio as well now. Whatever happened made the radio better. The recording settings allow you to choose from a specific date, weekly, Monday-Friday and everyday. Enough options to satisfy almost all of your needs. If they added a Tuesday-Saturday option for those programs that air in the early morning hours, it would be better. It is a little larger than I would like. For portability I prefer XM radios because of the smaller size.
I had to put this receiver in my car because I had a difficult time getting good reception in my home. I have three portable XM receivers set up next to each other and get three (out of three) bars of reception on all of them. This receiver was bought to replace a Sirius Stiletto 100 that never worked right and finally died. I could not get good, reliable reception on it either. On both I can/did sometimes get two bars but more often get/got the message "Acquiring Signal." If I set it up in a room that I would not listen to a radio in and run the antenna wire out the window and onto the roof, I can get three bars, but it won't record the programs that I schedule. Even in the car, I have experienced some loss of signal for no apparent reason. This is not a problem with XM. If you want true portability, I suggest getting an XM radio.
Customer Review: Looks pretty, but doesn't deliver where it counts.
Summary: 2 Stars
I've been reading all the reviews and I'm surprised no one has complained about what a shotty product this really is. Now granted, I abuse my electronics; however at a cost of $350 I expect something at least somewhat decent. The SL2 is a total ripoff. I like the old school headphones, so I'm not complaining about their comfort or bulkiness; I'm complaining that they STOPPED WORKING AFTER 3 WEEKS OF USE. I still use them as an antenna, but both speakers no longer work, so I'm forced to plug in a pair of earbuds, which only sometimes work. Now on to the battery issue. A full charge gets just about 4 hours of satellite play, not nearly enough. With my current job I spend 12-20 hours a day outdoors, and often can't get to an outlet to charge batteries for days at a time. This wouldn't bother me, except for the fact YOU CAN NOT BUY ADDITIONAL BATTERIES ANYWHERE (not even e-bay). Frankly, that sucks the big one. Bottom line -- the SL2 looks pretty and has lots of features, but it's too fragile for full on portable use, and I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS PRODUCT TO ANYONE. Even though I bought the service plan, I'm going to return it ASAP and get my money back. Hopefully they can perfect the technology sooner rather than later, because I love satellite radio. If anyone from sirius is reading this, PLEASE make a unit that uses less power or accepts standard battery sizes. I don't care if looks sleek and weighs four ounces, if I wanted an IPOD I would have bought one.