Today I also had the chance to play with the new Sirius Sportster 5. As everyone knows, I'm a big proponent of color displays becoming the norm for satellite radios (if nothing else, to have them look like something from 2007, not 1997).

But the Sportster 5 doesn't just have a color display - Sirius took it a little further.

The Sportster 5 has the ability to change colors to match your car's dash lights. To many people, especially those who want to maintain a "factory look," this is extremely important. Have a green dash? No problem, the Sportster 5's color display, and the backlighting for the knobs and various buttons, all can change colors to match.

My only gripe is that the color display is a pretty poor resolution. It's not nearly as crisp and clean as I would have hoped. Combined with the abstracted channel artwork and the display will make many a passenger ask "what the heck is that?"

For future versions I'd like to see a higher resolution display, and some album art (or in-studio images) as icing on the cake. I understand that it can't be distracting (as you should be driving and not staring at your radio), but just as the PAD data changes, so should the imagery. Either way, that's my wishlist for future iterations. For now, let's just enjoy the multi-color chameleon backgrounds, and the bonus 60-minutes pause/replay buffer to boot.

Well, well, well. Looks like XM won't be the only one on the block with a color plug-and-play receiver (and it's a welcome update in the evolution of satellite radio). Introducing the brand spankin' new Sirius Sportster 5.

The Sportster 5 boasts a vivid color display, simple navigation, and the advanced features that you've come to love from the Sportster line of receivers.

Let's let the features speak for the Sportster 5, because as plug-and-plays go, this is the new hotness from Sirius:

• Large multi-color display
• Selectable colors: match your dash lights and mood (awesome)
• Sirius Universal docking, so it's compatible with a majority of Sirius accessories
• Sirius Replay: pause, rewind and replay up to 60 minutes of live radio
• FM transmitter with FM preset function: allows you to store the best FM frequencies in your area
• 30 channel presets plus the standard array of PnP features like S-Seek Alerts, Sports Alert, One-Touch Jump, personalized tickers, etc
• Parental controls


• Alarm clock w/snooze: wake up in the morning to Hard Attack

The Sirius Sportster 5 will MSRP for $169.99 and will be available at retail this Fall 2007. Yet another winner from Sirius today.

Want more pics? Sure you do, check out more photos of the Sportster 5 after the jump...