By Lee Culp
Let’s face it; the economy has hit our finances hard. Yet, there are still exciting deals around the corner for this holiday season. That’s right folks, for all you holiday shoppers out there looking for a fantastic deal, look no further than Sirius XM’s holiday promotional offers to get that unique gift for your special someone this holiday season.
For starters, Sirius XM Radio (SIRI) is offering a 30 day “VIP Access Pass” to their online service, which is applicable for computer, iPhone®/iPod touch® use or a compatible internet radio. After your one month trial period of 120 channels of commercial free everything, and if you are now convinced this truly is the “best radio on radio”, simply do nothing! Your access will automatically continue and your subscription will be continued at the low rate of $12.95 per month with no contract, meaning you have the freedom to cancel at anytime.
The second great offer gives the consumer “$100 more reasons to listen” by offering up to $100 back with a radio purchase and subscription. Choose from eight select radios, subscribe and begin the holidays with a deeply discounted Sirius XM package. For Apple iPhone® users, this equates to a practically free Skydock™!
For those of you that already own a portable radio but have yet to activate it, Sirius XM is also offering the “60 Channel Challenge” until the end of November. You get until Nov. 30th to sample Sirius XM’s superb content for free. If you enjoy the experience, you may take advantage of 5 months of service for a mere $20 charge.
Sirius XM also offers many holiday deals exclusively to their current subscribers. With this final proffer, the company is offering up a holiday package deal for all consumers; from the person wanting to experience premium radio for free, to the portable user and the after-market crowd, and finally the current subscriber. It seems as though Sirius XM is definitely in the holiday spirit.
Whether you’re looking for that new tech gadget or simply to purchase that unique gift, Sirius XM’s holiday offerings are sure to satisfy the consumer’s wallet while giving a gift that will assuredly impress the loved-one, all the while lasting for years to come.
Position – Long SIRI
sounds great! So when is Sirius gonna tell us about this?(still awaiting the huge advertising push as you would think this is the weekend to go nuts now)
Razor/Razor blade theory. Give away the razors to get people to buy the blades.
How many people get free cellphones with a locked in subscription? It’s a natural for sat radio. The money is in the subs not the hardware.
Skydock Review & How to Get XM Package Savings, November 14, 2009
By Bluesky (Outside Atlanta, GA) – See all my reviews
First, some savings tips: Found an XM promotion online for a year of service for $77 (50% off the reg $12.95/mo rate); you have to call a special number (800-347-0600, which as a bonus appears to reach a U.S. call center) and ask for it. As of 12Nov09 it’s still good but only for their basic package. I wanted XM Everything & the Best of Sirius, which is $16.99; the rep offered 3 months of service for $29.99 then the regular rate after that. Not nearly as attractive a deal but hey, at least they threw me a bone. Also saw online that XM will credit your account $12.95 for having a credit card on your account for recurrent billing. Asked for that and got it too.
On to the Skydock. Based on a few days’ use, it’s a very, very well done product. Installation was pretty easy, with the antenna obviously the hardest part. It sticks quite well to metallic surfaces but you then have to run the wire to a spot where you can plug it in to the Skydock when it’s in use. So the challenge is hiding it behind panels, carpet, etc. along the way. A huge advantage over dedicated sat radio units is that you’ll usually take your iPhone with you when leaving the car. One less thing for someone to steal, and it’s also easy to detach and hide the Skydock if you’re concerned about break-ins.
The iPhone app has been flawless except for a couple of minor irritations like occasionally having to tap several times before an input will ‘take’. Also, when changing stations, the buttons and labels are small enough and far enough away while driving to require more attention than a typical car radio, so caution is definitely required. But the app is very intuitive and the ability to set alerts so you can switch over and listen to favorite artists/teams when they’re on is a very nice touch. There are really too many cool features to list, like being able to choose favorite teams and see a little ticker with news about them.
It’s a definite plus that all your iPhone/iPod functions work in the Skydock. When a call comes in, the programming or iPod music fades out and then back in when the call is over. I’ve seen complaints that the Skydock doesn’t feed phone audio to the vehicle speakers but that’s a ’so what?’ for me since I use a Bluetooth earpiece anyway. It’s very nice to have the iPhone handy in front of you when you’re sitting at a light and want to take a quick look at e-mail or whatever. Just please don’t try and read e-mail, text, etc. while your vehicle is moving. Right, common sense…but take a look around on the road and you’ll see just how uncommon common sense seems to be.
The sound is terrific using the supplied Aux cable, which we have in one vehicle. We live about 50 miles north of Atlanta and the FM method is good most of the time in the other vehicle, but this morning I drove downtown for the first time with the Skydock and it didn’t work well at all. The problem in a large city like Atlanta appears to be that there are no empty FM channels that don’t have a working channel on the next frequency up/down the scale, and the static/interference when driving near the city made the Skydock pretty much useless. In fairness, that’s based on having chosen four empty freqs to use the Skydock with (another nice feature is that it can accommodate multiple frequencies) so I still have much of the FM spectrum to explore and may get better results in the future. Still, it’s something to keep in mind for those in large cities.
One minor minus is that for bandwidth reasons maybe, Atlanta weather/traffic is on the same channel as Miami’s. You sometimes have to wait for the Miami info to finish before you hear your own.
What’s truly annoying is Sirius/XM’s nickle and dime approach to customers. For example, I’d much rather have Sirius service but though the companies have merged, Skydock is an exclusively XM product. You can’t have a Sirius subscription. The best XM package is $12.95 a month. But if you want NFL play-by-play or Howard Stern for example – not coincidentally, both highly popular Sirius products – you have to pay another $4 monthly. If you decide to drop the Sirius add-on, that’ll cost you $5 to make the change. Have another, separate satellite radio? They make you get a SEPARATE subscription. Ridiculous. Nothing earth-shaking but irritating nonetheless.
And one more thing, not a dealbreaker but still very annoying, is that on Sirius’ NFL play-by-play, there’s a national feed but you can also choose either the home team or away team broadcasts. You only get that option on XM for prime-time games and of course that is never mentioned.
XM’s crappy policies aside, Skydock is an outstanding product and highly recommended, especially for those who like me own an iPhone and have been on the fence about satellite radio.
Surprising innovation for Sirius XM, a perfect solution!, November 9, 2009
By Jason M. Williams – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?)
I bought the XM Skydock after getting a new car that wasn’t equipped with satellite radio and needing a solution to have satellite radio and iphone connectivity without wires running everywhere. The initial appeal was the efficiency of using the iPhones far-superior OLED screen and touch interface as my XM radio tuner, AND using the same hardware to get non-XM audio to the car stereo.
Installation was very easy. The power-outlet mount is surprisingly sturdy and tight. It will hold it’s position with minimal vibrations while driving, but a passenger can easily grab it and reposition to change the channel. The antenna wire and optional aux-line both connect to the base, facilitating a good wire-hiding job for a nice clean installation. I can’t review the new FM power-connect feature, as I chose the Aux-line installation, but I can say that the unit provides some good clean amplification for both XM audio and regular iPod audio. Nice rich deep bass and no noticeable electrical noise, indicating that the unit must have decent ground loop isolation built in. The sound was far better than when I previously had the iPhone connected via a direct line to the aux input.
I give the hardware 5 stars, the required iPhone app gets 4 starts for now due to some quirks, but hopefully there will be updates. It keeps deactivating the screen even though I have the keep alive option checked, and sometimes it won’t respond easily to a tap when trying to change the channel while driving. It is, however, substantially better than anything I’ve ever seen from a traditional Sirius XM receiver. Plus there’s the added value of being able to easily take a phone call even if you don’t have a fancy integrated bluetooth in your car, and each individual iPhone can carry it’s own favorites and other settings without paying for multiple subscriptions. Of course, perfect ubiquity is hindered by Apple’s iPhone OS limitations. If the XM Skydock app could be backgrounded, it would be possible to tune in a channel and then switch to GPS navigation on the same device. For now I’ll just have to stick to the dual iPhone solution when my wife and I are travelling.
Best Satellite Radio Device ever, November 1, 2009
By James Hampsten (Flora, Illinois, US) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
So simple to install even a caveman could do it! It took me a total of 2 hours and 15 minutes, to install including the 2 hours drivetime from where I got the skydock. in 15 minutes I had it installed, activated and my sports teams in the ticker. Sound quality with the powerconnect system is just amazing. I compared it to my old sirius receiver by doing a comparison test. put the sirius on the nascar channel and the skydock on the nascar channel, put 1 on 1 of my FM modulator sites, and 1 on another one. I put the sirius one up first. it sounded ok, but nothing special. Then I switched to the skydock. Can we say a difference! crystal clear sound as if I was watching the sirius music channels on my dish network satellite system. the skydock makes my old Sirius receiver sound like AM talk radio! Only complaint and this isn’t siriusXM’s fault but the door on top of the 1999 Chevy Silverado’s 12 volt plugins really makes it difficult to get the skydock in place and to pull it out. and trust me it is TIGHTLY plugged in, no falling out of this sucker. you may have some bouncing on rough roads but nothing that will cause your iphone or ipod touch to fall out of the cradle. It’s in there nice and snug. now only thing I have to say is. when’s the next one coming out with a mini DVR function like the starmate replay and other Sirius/XM receivers?
Absolutely Impressed!!!, October 12, 2009
By K. Via “Kevin” (Nashville, TN) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
Ok I must say I am extremely impressed With the XM Skydock. The install was easy, took about 20 minutes, 3 minutes was waiting for the area of the car I had to clean to dry. The only issue I ran into was I thought the cable that they give you that hooks up the receiver is short by about 6 inches (installed on a 06 Honda Civic). Activating the radio itself was a breeze, i did it all on line and never had to talk to a human which I enjoy. But if you have to speak to someone, it will be Bob from India. The sound quality of the radio was far beyond what I was expecting, it was crisp and clear, sounded just as good as music from my iPod. The app for the iPhone is perfect, you can tell they took the time to do it right the first time. Listened to it for the past two days and found no glitches or bugs in it yet, its absolutely beautiful. Overall I am pleased with this radio and would recommend it to anyone.
SkyDock is fantastic!!, October 15, 2009
By TWX (TN) – See all my reviews
I bought the SkyDock at BB last week and I love it! Sirius XM really did a good job with this. It was a breeze to setup. Just plug it in the cig adapter (it fits VERY snuggly) and plug in the antenna. Download the SkyDock app from the app store and call/go online to activate your subscription. Even before you activate, you can still use the SkyDock to listen to your mp3s or stream music from any other music app. When I first saw pictures of the SkyDock I thought the stalk looked a little odd and might be flimsy. But it’s very sturdy and works great to let you position your device exactly where you want it. The new “PowerConnect” FM transmitter sounds very good and makes installation much simpler than other sat rad devices. I no longer have to have the extra SureConnect wires in the car that I was using with my XMp3. Of course if you have an aux in in your car that’s going to give you better sound than using the FM transmitter. As for the app, it is extremely well designed and very intuitive. It’s very easy to flip through categories, channels and select favorites while driving. There isn’t a “scan” feature which would be nice, but it doesn’t take long to figure out where to swipe and touch without looking (keep your eyes on the road!) to do your own channel scanning. Sirius obviously spent a lot of time designing and testing this. It’s nearly perfect for a v1.0 app. This is an amazing device! Thank you Sirius XM!!!
Brandon,
saw tons of Sirius commercials yesterday during the football games with the Elvis tie in—Do you know of any plans to market the SkyDock which is receiving great awards, reviews etc. but i havent seen any ads from sirius via newspapers or tv–Apple tie in is HOT and they seem to be missing the boat here
As an avid supporter of Sirius XM’s service, and as an investor, I feel it necessary to comment on one element in this article that needs some attention from Sirius XM.
About a month ago, I was able to convince a co-worker to sign up for Sirius XM. She purchased a Stilleto 2 with the Car Dock. At the time Sirius XM offered a $100 Credit Card if she signed up for and paid for 1 year of service in advance. That’s exactly wht she did. She signed up for the standard Sirius package. What happened next gives me cause to be concerned, because it turned my co-worker from an excited customer into a Sirius XM basher.
Last week she received her credit card, but instead of the $100 as promissed, she received a $25 card. On top of that, she was billed extra for the online services that she never requested. Needless to say, she is POed. In the last few day, I’ve heard her telling her plight to several other team members, who I’m guessing will now think twice before signing up.
My whole point here, is that Sirius XM needs to be able to honor and effectivle execute properly on their special offers (like the one mentioned above). Perhaps this is single occurance, my my guess is that it happens frequently.