Delphi SA10224 SKYFi 3 Portable XM Radio Receiver with Vehicle Kit
by Delphi Products
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List Price: Our Price: $129.99 You Save: $69.96 (35%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $75.00 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Delphi SA10224 SKYFi 3 Portable XM Radio Receiver with Vehicle Kit
Customer Review: Great XM Portable Option
Summary: 4 Stars
I read all the good and bad things about this receiver before buying it and came close to not getting it at all, but tempted fate and ordered it anyway. And now I'm glad I did. I don't know if it's the latest firmware or I just got lucky (fingers crossed either way), but my system has not given a single bit of trouble. It's not too slow to start-up, link up, or change channels. The display is fine and the horizontal/vertical option is nice. The sound quality is just as good as our built in XM receiver.
My only two notes about the piece is more of a wish list instead of a problem list:
1. The FM transmitter doesn't work well at all.
2. The cabling is a pain to move from one vehicle to another. They give you a huge antenna cable and a long power cable, obviously to accomodate as many people as possible, which can be cumbersome to transfer. My wish here is that it were retractable into a spooler or something similar.
However, the system does exactly what I bought it for, it hasn't locked up, I've transferred it from vehicle to vehicle with no trouble, and I am very happy with it.
Originally I thought I'd be able to carry it around and receive XM, but I discovered you have to have the goofy looking headphones so I just record a channel for a couple hours and listen to that when I want it to be "walkable".
Customer Review: Yuck
Summary: 1 Stars
Well, as others have mentioned, the sound is fine. But, I had no complaints about SkyFi2's sound either. And beyond that, I've had nothing but trouble since I opened this thing.
1) It's very slow to boot up.
2) It is very slow to change channels and to register the buttons you press.
3) The remote is not as useful as the SkyFi2's remote.
4) The car console doesn't have a "jump" feature like the SkyFi2's did, so you need to use the remote to do that.
5) The "enter" button only sometimes acts as an "enter" button, and the rest of the time it changes the display mode, and there's really no way to predict when it'll work correctly.
6) This one's not the unit's fault, but I made sure my new car had an auxiliary input so I can hook up the radio--but when I hook it up to the car's power and auxiliary jack at the same time, there's a loud, high-pitched feedback, and the only way to avoid that is to not plug it in. But if it's not plugged in, it obviously doesn't work. So it can't work with the auxiliary jack.
7) The FM transmitter is not very good, and I had to purchase a separate modulator to hook up directly to the FM antenna.
I honestly wish I had never upgraded, and I'm going back to the SkyFi2 as soon as I finish typing this.
Customer Review: One of the Neatest Things I've Ever Bought
Summary: 5 Stars
I use this device with awesome results in my vehicle. I use a cassette adapter to play it through my car stereo, rather than the built in FM modulator. I get much better results using the cassette adapter. I do not have the antenna mounted on the exterior of my vehicle. Rather, I simply lay it on a non-skid pad on my dashboard. This device has
many improvements over the Roady2, most notably the portability (you can use it like a Walkman with headphones purchased separately). The ability to record songs is great, as is the fact that the device has a slot for up to a 2 GB microdisk. (It will not accept a microdisk larger than 2GB). Basically, you can use this device as an MP3 player and as a satellite radio. I did do the firmware update on the product. This was no big deal to do the download online. It does freeze on a rare occasion. There is a reset option that fixes this--you simply press two keys simultaneously as directed in the manual. I got this product and a home and car kit free after rebate elsewhere, even as an existing XM subscriber. I've also purchased the headphones with built in antenna, and an extra car and home kit. I got those accessories for about $5 each on the Delphi site using a special code I found on Fat Wallet.
Customer Review: Not recommended
Summary: 2 Stars
I first saw this at a Circuit City going out of business. When the clerk told me it was $32, I was sure it was a pricing mistake. I bought it, got it home, and immmediately updated to the latest firmware.
It locks up, doesn't always boot up when the power button is pressed, sometimes starts quickly, sometimes takes over a minute, buttons sometimes do what they're supposed to, sometimes they don't. Completely unpredictable; I have no idea what to expect every time I turn it on.
I'm on my third unit, courtesy of Delphi's 1-year warranty. They've all acted the same. I don't know why I keep returning them; just morbid fascination, I guess, and I figure that if I got burned, then I should cause the manufacturer a bit of trouble as well.
On XM's web site this only has a list price of $50, which means very little profit for Delphi, which explains (to me) why they've put so little effort into this device. Lots of features, yes, but with so many performance faults it's just not worth having around. Look for mine on Ebay. Or maybe I'll send it back for another exchange, just for fun. I'll think about it. But I would recommend you steer clear and get a non-Delphi radio.
Dave S.
Customer Review: Can you say Software Quality Assurance?
Summary: 1 Stars
I've had my SKYFi3 for just a couple of days now, but I've spent a lot of that time reading reviews like this and talking to Delphi customer service trying to get the thing to work right.
Some of the problems I was having were solved by uploaded the latest firmware (ver. 1.19). However, this hasn't solved everything.
I too have had a problem with hangups. I just got a 1Gb microSD card for it, and now I have a whole new assortment of problems. For some strange reason, it almost never plays the song that I ask it to. It also has a nasty habit of stopping as soon as the backlight shuts off (usually 3-4 seconds after the song starts).
After reading these reviews I found that it's true that keeping the backlight on does SOMETIME prevent the hangups I was getting with recorded songs. That's minimally acceptable if you have the unit in a dock (i.e.- external power). The thing's a real power hog. I swear you can use it as a hand warmer with the backlight on.
The bottom line is that the firmware is not ready for primetime. That's sad considering how long this unit's been on the market. Many of the menus are not the least bit intuitive and the firmware is full of bugs.