Associated Press Not Impressed By MyFi

prostoalex writes "Michael Regan from the Associated Press started reviewing MyFi, a portable satellite radio receiver, by treating it as a competitor to iPod, but then admitted the two devices are quite different. For $350 and a $10-a-month subscription the buyer gets access to XM satellite radio stations and ability to record the stream to 128 MB of built-in flash. There's no way to transfer the recorded content to the computer or vice versa. The review recommends waiting for lower price and better features."

Maybe useful for Flyover-country

[Dancin_Santa]

In any urban area, the number and variety of free radio stations (supported by volunteers or commercial sponsors) is staggering. There really isn't any reason to splurge on an expensive device when a twist of the dial can tune in just about any type of music that an individual would be interested in. If you can't find a station that interests you in those areas, perhaps it's time to turn the radio off altogether.

He dosn't get it.

[mkmoose]

As a XM user I am drooling over the features offered by this device. I owend a first generation sony PNP and now an XM Roady. This device is light years ahead of the first generation. Comparing this to a I-Pod or MP3 player confuses what the device is. It more correct to compare this to a tivo with cable.

Recommendation??

[fembots]

The review recommends waiting for lower price and better features.

So when is the right time to buy if people take this kind of recommendation seriously?

Price will be lower than the lower price you saw yesterday, features will be better than the better features you thought that are already better.

Re:Maybe useful for Flyover-country

[Eric Giguere]

Aren't most satellite channels commercial-free? That would seem like a good reason to me. Besides, even if there are dozens of channels in your area, there may not be any you really like.

Eric
How to make money with Vioxx [ericgiguere.com]

Re:Uhh

[EvilSporkMan]

The analog solution works at 1x - it takes as long to transfer the content as it does to listen to it. This can easily be construed as inconvenient.

Re:SIRIUS IS WAAAY BETTER

[solowCX]

Except in order to get Opie and Anthony you have to pay a monthly fee of $1.99 per radio in ADDITION to the monthly fee.

Re:Maybe useful for Flyover-country

[fimbulvetr]

You're area may be. But every station in the areas I've been to recently(Kansas City, Denver, Minneapolis) plays 2 crappy songs, then 4 minutes of commercials, followed by a good song, then 1 crappy song. In fact, most stations "brag" that they have 30 minute "rock blocks". Great, 30 minutes of junk followed by an equally long commercial break.
As far as I'm concerned, I'll pay $10 a month to not listen to BS.
On my trips across South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska and Minnesota, I usually give AM a shot, but not with one of these:)

Re:Uhh

[iocat]

This continues to kill me. People will listen to tinny, compressed, MP3s all day long and then recoil in horror at the lossyness of a *gasp* analog-to-digital conversion.

Yeah, it may be a 1x process, but who is out there who will be able to do this and already doesn't already have most of their music digitally anyway. XM is awesome, but I don't usually hear tracks I've never heard before, or old tunes that I simply *must* have. I'd probably only want to grab a couple tracks here and there anyway.

Re:Uhh

[MBCook]

All the sibling replies to this are right. Analog works, but it's a hassle.

It's Analog. That means that you go from Digital->Analog in the radio (which introduces imperfections). Then it goes from Analog->Digital in the computer (which introduces imperfections). While the quality may be close, it's not the same and without knowing exactly HOW it was compressed origionally, you can't get the same quality to filesize of the origional.

It's SLOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW. I can fill my 40gig iPod with music in a few minutes. But to copy all that off though analog would take days. While it's not as bad when the thing only holds 4 hours of stuff, that's 4 hours of my life that I'm wasting (compared to the 30 seconds to a minute 128mb of stuff should take).

You lose metadata (didn't see this in siblings). When it's on the XM thing, it knows how long each song is and the title and artist (I assume, XM broadcasts this info so it should be easy to save). When I copy that 4 hours to my PC through analog, I get one 4 hour file. No song names, no track marks, no artists, NOTHING. So you either have to do it manually or try to autodetect (like with silence) which has its own flaws.

And that's not to mention things like the soundcard on my laptop (the only PC I really use) is noisy (so the analog solution would require me to buy some kind of breakout box to get decent quality) and things look even worse.

Analog can work for a handfull of songs, but more than that... it's just too hard.

Now, wouldn't it be great if you could get a license to transfer stuff off this device ONTO your iPod? If they could work that out (say make it get automatically deleted, or you can't have any more than 12 hours of content recorded max or something) that would be FANTASTIC. Think how many of these things they could sell (even if they charged an extra $1 or $2 per month to do that).

Either way, a DVR for satellite radio (DAR - Digital Audio Recorder?) is an interesting development. Let's see if other recievers start adding these kind of features.

I don't think you do, either.

[shaneh0]

If XM sold these units to every single one of their subscribers and nobody else, this unit is a failure.

XM's real value will be growing the supplier base, and this device is designed to do that. I'd say it's competing more in the "portable music" segment then the "satellite radio delivery options" segment, although there is of course overlap there.

But yes, I do think for a lot of consumers that are considering digital music--especially those considering these devices as gift options this holiday seasion--this device would be compared to the ipod mini.

Re:Maybe useful for Flyover-country

[Guppy06]

"There really isn't any reason to splurge on an expensive device when a twist of the dial can tune in just about any type of music that an individual would be interested in."

That's just it, though: you need to hit the turner and hope you'll find something you want to listen to. If nothing else, satellite radios will tell you when something you want to listen to is coming on and let you tune in automatically. And you also don't have to hit the dial to avoid commercials.

When was the last time you actually sat down and listened to your radio, as opposed to using it as a noise-maker while focusing on something else?

Price tag

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason for the $350 price tag is that you not only get the receiver, but the vehicle kit, home kit, rechargeable battery, headphones, antennas and more. If you compare that to the cost of the SkyFi2 ($100), home kit ($50), car kit ($50), and the boom box ($100); I think for $50 more the portability and convenience of recording up to 5 hours of programming justifies the cost.

Re:Maybe useful for Flyover-country

[CatOne]

Except radio is AWFUL... a typical playlist is 15 songs per day, repeated over and over and over. And many radio stations out here in NorCal take 4 1/2 minute commercial breaks... how annoying is that when you're working out? There's way too much blather... I never hear what I want and when I'm somewhere other than home, I can fish on the radio for 15 minutes before finding a song I like... which cuts out 30 seconds later and goes to... commercial.

With satellite, you can have 5 or 6 commercial-free stations that you like, and "in theory" get them anywhere. In concept it sounds great -- my DirecTV has digital radio stations and I listen sometimes when I'm tired of what I have on the iPod. But in practice, satellite radio reception is a bit spotty (as noted in the article).

Re:Maybe useful for Flyover-country

[randomiam]

People need to remember that radio stations are in the business of delivering listeners to advertisers, not music to listeners.*

I gladly shelled out for Sirius service when it became available. To my mind, it seems preferable to pay my music provider directly and have them worry about my happiness rather than some advertisers.

* paraphrasing Doug Adams

Don't know what your missing till you try it...

[moronicidiot]

When Satellite Radio (SDARS) first hit the market, I was among those who swore up and down that I would never pay a subscription for radio service. Radio service, one of the easiest obtainable free services around, was fine the way it was.

It stayed that way until I happened to see a good deal on a receiver and decided that I would go ahead and give it a try, subscription numbers were growing (although this was still while XM was sub-1,000,000) and popularity was increasing. It was one of those things, I had no idea what I was missing until I gave it a try.

That was about 2 years ago. I am now paying about $25/month for SDARS, as I subscribe both to Sirius and XM and pay the premium fee for Opie & Anthony on XM. The commercial free music is great; the sound quality is superb and the list of choices is endless. I can drive cross-country listening only to music that I enjoy and without commercials with runtime longer than the songs. Although I rarely listened to broadcast radio opting instead for CDs, that has completely turned around and I find that I rarely listen to CDs and even listen to SDARS over watching TV or Movies a lot of the time.

If I am out of the house all day, I can get my fill of FoxNews, MSNBC, or CNN. The Right-Wing and Left-Wing channels offered by each service allow me to see each viewpoint as harshly as those contesting it feel when it comes to political issues.

You don't know what you're missing till you try it... As for the MyFI specifically, yes it would be nice but not for the price they want. You can get a receiver, car kit, and home kit all for about $100-120 after rebate or using Friends & Family promos. I would really like a MyFI, but will not be getting one until the price comes WAY down or there is a competing product with a much lower price.

Early adopter device

[DarthWiggle]

This thing isn't perfect. Hell, the first personal computers (as we would recognize them today) were heavy, loud, ugly, and could barely calculate a square root. I won't buy this thing, but I will step back and recognize that it's a pretty extraordinary little device: a Walkman-sized box that receives significant and complex information from satellites floating way up in space. Think about that in the context of, say, 1960 ... or 1980. GPS does, broadly, the same thing, but think about how much more limited the bandwidth requirements are for a GPS unit.

Absolutely amazing.