You cannot legally obstruct the driver’s view of the road in anyway. You can be pulled over for something as minor as a parking tag on your rear view mirror.

Usually, police won’t pull someone over for this reason but will charge you for a violation of obstructing the driver’s view if you are already pulled over for another traffic violation.

Bottom line. You legally cannot put ANY mountings on your windshield.

~ Don ~

28 Reviews
5 star: (15)
4 star: (6)
3 star: (0)
2 star: (2)
1 star: (5)

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A technological marvel, but be wary of merged Sirius/XM service, January 11, 2009
By Jerry Saperstein (Evanston, IL USA) – See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)
The Pioneer GEX-XMP3 Portable XM Satellite Radio Receiver is a technological marvel. The unit, however, has no useful existence without the companion Sirius/XM service and I have grave reservations about the newly merged service which I’ll address below.

The XMP3 is a vast improvement over the original INNO. It is smaller, lighter and has more features. The unit measures 2 x 3.6 x 0.6 and weighs 3.1 ounces: definitely shirt-pocket sized. It has a 2.5″ screen that displays information such as titles and program guides in vibrant color. (Unfortunately, the screen is useless for displaying your own photos or video as will be explained.)

The battery supports 4 hours of live XM playback or 16 hours of recorded audio playback. A second battery or backup power supply is a must for active use when playing live XM. I recommend the Tekkeon TekCharge Rechargeable Li-Poly Battery for this purpose.

The XMP3 feature list is long and impressive:

It takes microSDHC cards up to 8GB. With 128kbps MP3 audio, that’s enough space for about 120+ hours of recorded music. Because the XM service cannot be dependably received in buildings and some other locations, you will definitely appreciate this capacity.

The 2GB of internal memory will store 75 hours of programs or 10 hours of songs. I have no idea of why this peculiar limitation exists, though it probably has something to do with the RIAA.

You can record up to five channels simultaneously. Recording setup is quick and easy. There is also an interesting automatic recording feature which will “learn” your music listening preferences and automatically record up to 30 hours of programs from five channels.

Another very neat feature is the ability to pause live audio and then playback up to 30 minutes. Kind of like an audio TiVo and very handy if you have to interrupt your listening for a short while.

The user interface on the XMP3 is delightful. Four physical buttons, a scroll wheel and four touch sensitive buttons. Menus are explicit and very easy to follow for all available functions.

There’s a 3.5mm audio jack and the volume is sufficient to ruin your hearing, if that’s your choice. Audio range is adequate, but not outstanding. There is, by the way, no built-in speaker.

You can tune in the XM program guide, which is helpful, and there are TuneSelect and GameSelect features. These latter two features allow to find your favorite artists whenever they are being played on any XM channels. You can input up to 30 names.

There a bunch of other features that I don’t have a lot of use for, but you may. You can play audio books, make up playlists and more. There is also well designed software to managae your XMP3 music from your PC. Best to visit the Pioneer website to get all the information on the XMP3.

XM reception with the built-in antenna is surprisingly good, but if you get one of these, expect to use it as a pre-recorded music player much of the time when depending on the internal antenna.

What don’t I like? My biggest dislike is the merged Sirius/XM service which I’ll get to momentarily.

I don’t like the fact that the unit is so expensive. I bought mine through a special XM promotion with home and car docks and while it represented a considerable savings, it is still too expensive in my opinion. Pioneer and XM put outlandish prices on the docks, in my opinion, to discourage users from using one receiver in multiple locations. A dock costs as much as a year’s second XM subscription. Considering that they sell many perfectly adequate XM receivers for just a few dollars or even give them away free occasionally, you can see their logic: they want you to buy multiple radios, each of which needs its own subscription.

I’d rather use one radio and have one subscription – XM does all it can to discourage that approach.

Second, I think XM really limits its market by not including photo and viewing capability in this unit. I’m not an engineer and I have no idea of what it would take to add such capability. But I do see many other reasonably priced personal media players that include music, photo, video and even FM tuner capabilities at one-half or less the price of the XMP3 and don’t require a subscription. In fact, as I wrote this paragraph, I have to question why I own this unit especially considering what has happened to the once superb XM service.

—-
Read all customer reviews at amazon.com.

Average Customer Review
3.9 out of 5 stars (28 customer reviews)

There are dead spot places where one will not be able to pickup the satellite radio signal. It is an annoying situation that one has to deal with when listening to a portable satellite radio.

Here are links that maybe helpful to you.

http://www.topix.com/forum/com/siri/T5M52S4CFERRQCCSB

http://www.heavens-above.com/orbitdisplay.asp?satid=26390

“High Gain Weather Proof Antenna can be used indoors or mounted outside on a wall or a roof (comes with 20 ft cable)”

Sirius satellite radio requires a paid subscription, so go to Sirius on line or talk to someone in auto at Best Buy to get answers and make up your mind. Very few people think it’s worth it, FYI. I have a Sirius receiver in my truck and I don’t bother to subscribe — it’s too much money for what you get.

MP3 ready means that you can play an MP3 device through the car speakers with a cable that may use either a headphone jack or a USB. You cannot just play from a flash drive, it has to be an MP3 player.

If you use Pandora or some similar internet radio on your cell phone, you can play that through the car speakers but only when you’re in range of a cellular signal.

Slacker.com has a web player similar to Pandora, but they also have a patented portable device that actually loads the stations via wi-fi so it’s entirely seamless and playback requires no cellular signal. It’s often on sale at Best Buy and using the service is absolutely free.

Again, check with Best Buy or maybe even Radio Shack. There’s probably an adaptor to turn the USB into a regular auxiliary jack. Then you would need the cable (same on both ends) that would connect to the headphone jack of a device. And of course, while you’re there you could get all the info on satellite radio subscriptions.