What is honestly the better of the two? XM or Sirius? I really couldn’t care less for either one to be honest however they both have their pluses.
My personal take on the whole business of satellite radio is that it is a waste of money. Why? I am much more of a local feel type person. Meaning that many people who are like me care for the local station much more than a nationally televised station.
When watching TV, would you like to here about news in your city? Or somewhere you’ve never even heard of. If I want that kind of stuff, I’ll just watch Matt and Meredith, then finally see what’s in my neck of the woods half way through the whole thing.
XM has a lot of great sports channels as does Sirius. They are pretty much the same thing with a few differences here and there. Its like trying to compare the Zune and the iPod…you can make a whole list of differences if you care to read that many or just simply state that they do pretty much the same thing in different ways.
Finally: Why Satellite or Why Not? Here goes, Satellite works for the person that does not care about local stations and who is constantly traveling. This person will like one station and be on it for the whole time. It also fulfills the needs of a person that doesn’t like too much interruption. Up until about a year or so ago, I never heard a lot of commercials on the radio. That has changed a little…for the most part, not too many.
You will like satellite radio, IF…
1. You enjoy one station for a long trip
2. You like sports and hearing a wide array of the whole topic
3. You care more about national news than select audience local news
4. You want a channel that plays only a certain type of music…more and more radio stations are broadcasting and trying to make money by attempting to catch a lot of different listeners…This can be annoying!
5. You simply like telling people that you pay 20 bucks a month for your radio and they pay nothing.
Happy Listening!
~Jason
Actually, another reason for satellite radio is:
6. You live in the sticks (i.e. have to drive more than an hour to get to a shopping district) and the only local stations are spotty in coverage and not to your taste.
We live in a low-mountainous region, and any radio coverage at all is difficult to find. There are three radio stations I can get with any kind of consistency in the house, and on the road those are hampered by the local terrain. The stations aren’t my flavor, either, one religious, one country/western, and one from the agricultural college nearby. My solution has been to load up the iPod or thumb drive with music and podcasts off of the internet and play those, but the satellite radio option has also been discussed. I think it’s more likely we’ll splurge on an internet radio player for the house, which basically translates to a cable radio, right?
Has anyone heard about FlyTunes? I read online that it gives you Internet radio but it uses your iPhone (or an iPod touch). I checked out the website & signed up. Not sure when I’ll be able to access to check it out.
Helen…wow that has to be boring…well i didnt think about people like yourself…interesting contribution.
Kay…flytunes sounds interesting.
I finally got my flytunes account & it’s really impressive. Loads quickly, sounds great. Although it’s free, you do have to have an iphone or ipod touch to use it. Not sure if it’s a viable alternative for others or not..at least, until it’s available for other PMPs.