Additionally, XM radio means that you can travel coast to coast without losing your signal, so the programs you love are always available. For example, I love the syndicated New-Age radio program “Hearts of Space“. It came on public radio when I lived in Atlanta, but it has been hard to find a station that plays it in Seattle. Well guess what? XM carries it on their New Age channels and now I’ll never miss it no matter which city I visit. I can even schedule the recording so I never miss an episode.
You can record up to 10 hours of audio on the internal memory. Unfortunately, because of Digital Rights Management, you cannot copy or otherwise transfer your recordings to an external device such as your PC or SD card.
The microSD card is really only there so the unit doubles as an MP3 player. You cannot record XM to the card, nor can you transfer recordings to the mini storage device. The choice of microSD over regular SD severely limits this unit as an iPod replacement. Right now the largest microSD card is 4GB (SkyFi will only see 2GB of it), but the largest full-size SD card is 16GB. If I had 16GB of MP3s available then this device would easily service as a full-service one-stop portable audio solution.
Delphi includes software that allows you to sync up with Napster, though. If you record or flag an artist or song, then the software will automatically find it on Napster and allow you to purchase it. I don’t think too many people will be excited about this option, as there are more popular MP3 stores that could have been chosen. The software will automatically transfer your selection to the microDS card, however.
The USB cable does allow you to connect the radio to your PC. The unit can technically be charged over USB, but the unit requires so many amps that I haven’t been able to successfully charge it via the USB cable (the unit will come on and the display backlight will flicker, an indication that there isn’t enough power). I could charge the unit when the backlight was off, however.
The LCD screen is rather weak when compared to other modern audio gadgets. The display is rather large and bright, but is a monochrome LCD display with a very narrow angle of view. I have to lean over from the driver’s seat to see what is currently on (which is probably as safe as talking on a cell phone while driving). The LCD also has a very low refresh rate, which normally isn’t a big deal but makes any scrolling content unreadable (even if scrolling very slowly). The display is adequate and the interface has good usability, but outdated by today’s standards.
