Thread: Satelite radio vs. carputer?

lol...i know...said that to myself 2 seconds after I posted...

The XM radio would be around $50 for a Roady 2 which includes everything you need for a car setup, plus $12.99 per month. You could splurge for a better reciever and maybe a direct hookup to your head unit instead of a tape adapter or FM transmitter also.

The car computer would be alot more if you went with a decent setup from scratch. I know alot of people use stuff they have laying around or even stick an entire computer in a full sized case in their cars, but yeah..... If you went with something that looked like it went in a car instead of a desktop, then it'd be fairly costly. Smaller means more expensive in the electronics world.

Anyways, with an XM radio it's fairly inexpensive and works really well for music. You can add a mp3 player to that setup easily to carry your collection with you if want and you are pretty set for music. If you want to do more....much more, then a computer is what you want. Just be prepared to spend alot of time and money setting it up. Generally more time equals less money, as in doing it yourself.

Well you can scroll through the channels to see the artist and song title while continuing to listen to whatever you were on before without tuning to each station with the Roady 2 at least. You couldn't do that with the original SkiFi, it would automatically tune to the station after a few seconds so you had to be quick. The Roady won't tune to a station unless you click in the scroll wheel. Of course it just shows the station names in the list view of the SkiFi anyways, so you'd want to tune to find out the titles. Okay, just so you know.

Yeah, you'd need more than 2 or 3 lines of text and maybe a touch screen for that. They might get there, but I doubt it since it'd be alot more expensive to add a really good screen...if it was only for XM. We sell tons of Roady 2s because they are cheap and all inclusive, especially since they dropped from around $100 to $50. Since the SkiFi 2 replaced the original a few months ago we've sold like 1. It retails for over 3 times as much now, so I doubt we'll sell any of them. Anyways....

Oh and Sirius...yeah, not much interest in them.

You'd need an XMPCR (which was discontinued) or an XM Direct hacked to work with a PC in order to see multiple channels at once without touching the unit. In that case, you NEED a carpc. Check out xmfan.com for info on getting the right XM unit for the carputer.

Carputers are much more advanced than just using them for MP3s. If you just want music, go get an iPod. If you want music, video, GPS, and more, then keep looking at a carputer. It's not for everyone though, it generally takes some time at the start to get it 'right'. (i've been hacking at mine for about a month and a half now, and i'm still working to get it exactly how I want it), so you have to be willing to put up with it. It's not like going out and buying a car stereo, it doesn't just 'pop' in.

I have XM with my carputer, the MiFi to be exact. Maybe down the line i'll get one of the XMDirect units and hook it up, but for now, I switch between the two. Sometimes I like the variety of XM, and sometimes I like to listen to what I have on mp3