Sirius recently unveiled their latest iteration of their portable satellite radios, the Stiletto 2. The best part is it’s smaller and lighter than the original Stiletto.
So normally a decrease in size isn’t enough to warrant and entirely new product, so what features came with the diet? Enhanced WiFi is the first, then there is a new microSD card slot and better library management.
Yikes, and it was all going, well, not too bad for the Sirius Stiletto – the hotly anticipated satellite radio DAP that promised so much and yet, as Travis Hudson found out, delivers very little. His quibbles? Zero indoor and patchy outdoor reception, the ergonomics of a brick (and not a pleasant brick, no, the nasty kind), slow WiFi (the Stiletto uses ‘b’) and a limited number of internet radio channels to choose from, oh, and the headphones (which have the aerial built-in, so you can’t change them) are uncomfortable and look dorky. All in all, not a great showing.
Looks like the first Sirius Stiletto satellite radios are emerging into the wild, snuffling their little noses and blinking at the welcoming sun. First reports are of great reception when using the headphone cable as an antenna, with fair-to-middlin’ results with the internal receptor. Check out the flickr gallery from which these images were taken from for the full, no-holds-barred unboxing, and a video showing some deeply slick menu surfing after the jump.
Words out that after being stopped about 2 weeks ago possibly due to intervention of the FCC, the SIRIUS Stiletto 100 is now back on for preorders. However, the ship date remains uncertain but most likely will be in late September or early October. Sites such as TSS-Radio have already placed the Stiletto back on its website along with its video. Hope its a smooth road from here on, we’ll keep you posted.
Wired got our hopes up by mentioning the inclusion of Bluetooth on the Stiletto, which turned out to be wrong. Then Sean of TSS-Radio informed me that SIRIUS had asked him to take down the first ever video showing off the Stiletto. At that point, I sensed something terrible was about to happen. A day later, TSS-Radio and Crutchfield yanked the pre-order page off their site. It would be nice if it turned out to be a production issue, but we’re not that lucky. The word on the street is the FCC may have something to do with this recent turn of events. We take it for granted when the nice folks at the FCC approves this or that gadget, until that one day where a the Stiletto gadget we all longed for gets rejected for whatever reason. Lets hope this isn’t the case.
BIG shout out to our buddies at TSS-Radio for sending this clip of the SIRIUS Stiletto for your viewing pleasure. Thanks a million Sean!
Pre-order the SIRUS Stiletto satellite radio for $349.99 at tss-radio. NOTE: it will not be available until late September or early October.
UPDATE 9/6/2006: SIRIUS Stiletto SL100PK1: First Ever Video!
Oh my god, say it’s true! Wired mentioned in passing that the SIRIUS Stiletto “packs Bluetooth!” Just when I thought this sick portable satellite radio couldn’t get any better. I’m preparing pink slips for all of my iPods in anticipation for the new arrival!
Aside from Wi-Fi and a satellite reciever, the slim Stiletto 100 packs Bluetooth, meaning that might let users link to other Stiletto users without draining much power — unlike the MusicGremlin and (apparently) the Microsoft Zune, which use power-hungry ad-hoc Wi-Fi connections.
So why am I so excited about having Bluetooth as an option on the Stiletto? Music sharing and file transferring to and between laptops and pc, Advance Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) allows streaming music wirelessly via BT to a compatible headset, and it’s not a power hog unlike WiFi.
Finally, a Sirius IPod Threat [Wired News, via Orbitcast]
UPDATE 9/6/2006: SIRIUS Stiletto SL100PK1: First Ever Video!
If you haven’t drooled over the SIRIUS Stiletto from the past reports, feast your eyes on these super high resolution images. I promise you that they’ll knock your socks off! I’m counting every second until mine arrives, 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi…damn is it here yet?
UPDATE 08/31/2006: Our buddies at TSS-Radio just informed me that the Soloist retails for $149.
Behold the first ever-real life shot of the Stiletto! It’s cradling on top of the Soloist; featuring NXT’s flat speaker technology. This is one accessory definitely worth purchasing to go with the new Stiletto! The Soloist will come with three cradles, one for the Sportster 4, one for the iPod and the last is for the Stiletto (maybe). If only the Soloist allowed for the iPod and Stiletto to dock side by side; now that’s impressive!
You’ve heard enough of my rants and rave about the soon to release SIRIUS Stiletto. Up until now, we have nothing more than blurry images to drool over. Blurry no more, thanks to SSG for the high-resolution image of the SIRIUS Stiletto and GSI for the official reseller sheet with information about the two Stiletto models (100 and 10), the Starmate4 and Stratus receivers.
Just a quick recap, the new Stiletto 100 and 10 will ship in September and October, respectively. Both models offer the same touch-sensitive wheel, easy-to-read color display screen, 100 hours of MP3 and WMA files for the Stiletto 100, WiFi, two lithium-ion batteries, one large and a slimmer version. The full-size battery allows four hours of live satellite radio listening and up to 20 hours of pre-stored-content listening, while the slim battery has only half the listening time. Damn, that was a mouthful. Any questions?
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