Slaxxor

I know this is way old news, but it’s new/old to me. Confused? Yeah, me too. So here’s the deal: I got XM (satellite radio for anyone living in or under a rock) shortly after it came out, when the second generation Delphi receivers were the top o’ the line. I got a Delphi Roady2, a nice little radio, for $50 bucks at BestBuy. It comes with everything needed to use in the car (mobile antenna, cassette adapter, DC power adapter) and even has a built-in FM transmitter for those of us without cassette decks in the car. For (I think) another $30, I got the Roady2 Home Kit. This included an AC adapter, larger Home antenna, and a nifty little remote control. As for content, there’s more than any one person could possibly want, and this is not a bad thing. There are now 4 24/7 comedy channels, whose only downside is the 5 minutes (or so) of annoying commercials per hour. Evidently all the music channels are commercial-free, but some of the talk/comedy/etc channels have commercials. Not a large problem though, all you have to do is change the channel. Anyway, I like the comedy and classical channels best, so I stuck those on my presets. Very easy interface overall, and there’s 30 presets available, like 8 backlight colors, and a neat little song recall function. When you hear a song you like, you hold in the OK button for about 2 seconds. It then saves the song’s info, and the next time it shows up on any channel, it notifies you, and allows you to go to the song with the push of one button. This feature might be the coolest thing about satellite radio in general, as it allows you to monitor all 200+ channels for your favorite songs. This radio now sells for less than $50, and there’s also a little conversion kit that turns the Roady2 into a mobile radio, including a battery, headphones that act as an antenna, and an FM tuner for when you can’t get the satellite signal (which is almost never). Really a superb piece of electronics at a tiny price.

Additionally, there’s a promotional code you can use when signing up that waives the activation fee and the first three months of service, as well as letting you purchase a year of service for 77.00 instead of the 12.99 monthly rate. Based on the amount of time I spend using the radio and its quality of sound and content, I think the 12.99 price is too low. But please don’t raise it XM

Thanks for reading,

Corin

This entry was posted on Monday, August 27th, 2007 at 9:23 pm and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.