The S50 from SIRIUS has a refined look and a world of features.

The debate rages over which satellite radio provider is the best. They cost the same, run similar programming, and up until now, offered similar receivers. Sirius has taken a huge step to separate itself from the pack with the S50.

My first impression was strictly superficial. The S50 just looks better than anything else available right now. While satellite radio receivers are getting sleeker and smaller, the majority of them still look like over-sized cell phones or PDAs. The plug-and-play units have a multitude of small buttons that make hunting and pecking a dangerous task at 65 miles per hour, and the single-color screens give them little in the style department.

The S50 has broken away from this mold, with a clear, multi-color screen and a clean, all black face. All operating buttons have been placed on the sides of the S50, so there is nothing to clutter the front of the unit. When it is being used in its included car dock, everything is controlled by the large, easy to grab wheel on the dock's base. As with most satellite tuners, there is an included wireless remote that also makes navigating through the channels easier, but I rarely found myself going for the remote due to the ease and accessibility of the click wheel.

I liked the many options for mounting the S50 base in my car, including an adjustable, telescoping base, as well as a vent-mounted base. The vent mount made it extremely easy to move the S50 from car to car, although it was a little unstable when attached to the curved vents in one of my vehicles. When mounted to the flat vents in another car, the base was rock solid. The vent mounting also allowed me to place the S50 a little higher in my vehicle than the permanent base. This made it much easier to see the screen and make adjustments without having to glance away from the road.

The vent-mounted base made it easy to make adjustments to the S50 without taking my eyes off the road.

The S50 is controlled through the click wheel and buttons on the base when mounted in the car dock.

While my stereo does have an auxiliary input, I decided to use the S50's FM transmitter to avoid running another wire up the front of my dash. The transmitter worked extremely well, and the S50 offers storage space for multiple frequencies. This is an excellent feature if you are travelling between cities, which I do often. As soon as I began to hear any interference on one frequency, I was able to quickly and easily switch over to a clear channel that was already preset in my stereo and in the S50.

Another of my favorite features was the voice navigation. As I rolled through the many stations, a voice announced each station, allowing me to keep my eyes on the road and not the screen. With my older receiver, I find I generally stick to a few of my favorite preset stations because it just takes so long to scroll through the channels. The voice navigation on the S50 tells me right away what the station is, so I don't need to spend extra time trying to figure out what I'm about to hear. I found I enjoyed more of the wide variety of SIRIUS programming because of this.

The kit includes a number of options for mounting the S50 cradle in your car or truck.

The S50 also has the ability to pause and rewind live broadcasts, so I never missed anything when answering my cell phone or hitting a drive-through for lunch. The replay buffer gave me up to 60 minutes of programming and the ability to rewind or fast forward through the saved broadcast. When I was done listening to the paused content, the S50 went right back to live radio.

When the S50 is docked in the car cradle, it can store up to 50 hours of music and programming, and it can even record content from three of your favorite stations to save songs and shows while you are away. For me, this more than made up for the fact that the S50 doesn't play live broadcasts when used as a portable music player. Whenever I unplugged the S50 to use it away from its dock, I had more than enough new content to make it seem live. Of course, I also had all of my favorite songs, which were easy to store with the "love" button on the docking cradle. Simply press the button marked with a heart, and the S50 stores that song or section of programming. It also sorts all the stored SIRIUS content into its appropriate genre, making it easy to find songs by style, artist, or title.

The S50 also holds MP3 and WMA files, and will charge when connected to your computer. I rarely found the need to load any of my saved music onto the player, as I had plenty of content pulled from over the air. I did stick a few of my favorite songs on the S50, and it was extremely easy with the included software. Adding MP3s did take up a little more room than simply pulling content directly from SIRIUS, but I never got close to taking up all of the 1 GB of memory on the S50.

Everything you need to enjoy the S50 on the go and in your vehicle is included with the kit, as well as all the necessary software to put your favorite music files into the S50's memory.

Of course I still got all of the features that are standard on many satellite receivers these days: 30 channel presets, a jump button that takes me to a programmed channel, game alert to let me know when my favorite teams are playing, and a scrolling sports score ticker. The S50 comes with a belt clip and earphones for using the player as a portable device, and everything needed to set up the receiver in your vehicle. You also get a USB cable, an indoor AC power adapter, and all the necessary software to pull music files from your computer.

While the S50's click wheel is an excellent feature, it did feel a little flimsy at times. With so many functions running off of the same button, it was easy to hit the wrong direction when reaching for it while driving. A little firmer feel to the wheel would fix this, and it wasn't a problem when I could give the S50 my undivided attention when not driving.

Small size, great looks, and excellent reception make the S50 stand out from other satellite radio receivers on the market.

I know a lot of people are already complaining that the S50 is not truly a portable satellite receiver, because it doesn't receive live transmissions when it is out of its car or home cradles. Personally, I never had a problem with this. By setting up the "My SIRIUS" stations, I had plenty of saved songs and shows that I had missed while at work or doing other things. These were all new to me, and with 50 hours of storage space, it would be tough to go through all the missed content before popping the S50 back in the dock for more live radio.

SIRIUS seems to have made the S50 with the idea of making it the best in certain arenas: excellent satellite radio reception, ease of use, MP3 and WMA compatibility, and great looks. In my opinion, the S50 accomplishes all of these things perfectly. Adding on-the-go satellite radio reception may have only compromised the S50 in one of the other categories. There is still a long way to go before any satellite receiver is truly portable, as many still suffer from poor reception. I applaud SIRIUS for doing something the right way. I don't see any reason why the S50 can't do the job of plug-and-play satellite radio receiver and portable MP3/WMA player, and look great doing both. It certainly worked for me.