XM vs Sirius Portable Receivers - What's Out There

I am new to XM. I cannot speak to the other options you are considering but I just purchased the Delphi MyFi unit 2 weeks ago. It is very easy to use and transfer from office/home to car. For the gym it would work fine as long as you are listening to the 5 hours of recorded music feature. As to the sound quality, it is certainly not CD quality. If you are used to hi end sound you will be a little disappointed. I was. My retailer (not a big box outlet) who I trust said that XM does have a little better bandwidth than Sirius. The other issue for me is reception. For home/office use, the antennae must face out a window to the south. That was a bit of an issue for me. Also, the antennae for the car seems less effective than the antennae for the office. Fidelity seems to be a bit worse for the car than the office as well. For me, I'm still happy with my unit as I was looking for continuous music for my midfi office system plus the portability for the car on long trips etc.

I recently signed on with Sirius so I could continue listening to Howard Stern and am very happy with the inexpensive Starmate Replay.

The S50 is THE cool Sirius unit to get right now because of the cool design, small size, and 50 hour Tivo-like recording ability. However, I've read a lot of reviews online about quirkiness of this unit. It seems many owners have experienced problems with the unit not powering up immediately or having it turn off all of a sudden. I've also read that it doesn't stay seated in the car craddle when driving.

Also, although you can record 50 hours of programming it can't be done continuously. I think it only records a program in one or two hour chunks, so that a five hour Howard Stern show can't be recorded continuously.

Sound quality of satellite radio isn't something that would impress you if you used it as your source in a nice two channel system, but that's not the reason I listen to iTunes on my computer or my iPod either.

Whether you go with XM or Sirius, I think you'll enjoy the varied content and all the music channels.

I cannot tell you too much about the hardware.....but......the reception for XM was much better in my car than Sirius. I still went with Sirius due to the programming. I would look at programming long before hardware. They both offer a free online trial. XM claims to have a deeper playlist.....in other words, plays lots of B sides and crappy songs......while Sirius plays the more popular tunes that I want to hear. Your mileage may vary.