Just got a SkyFi2

[Scott Greczkowski]

Hey guys, earlier tonight I went to Circuit City and was surprised to see that they had SkyFI 2 units in stock (they had about 7 of them) so I picked one up.

I just activated it about 10 minutes ago and havent had much time to play or listen to it.

I don't like the screen that much, lots of streaking is seen through the words and bars.

I will write up a better review when I have more time to play with it. But here are some photos of the unit.

 

[Sirius_Rich]

Hurry up with the review, lol.

After reading your post I ran down to Best Buy to look a the new offering from XM. Looks very nice, but did notice the display was too soft (lack of a better word).

This unit should sell well for the Christmas season.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Ok only played with it for about an hour or so...

Here is my initial thoughts

The Display on the unit is terrible, while the pictures don't show it the images on the display is a bunch of smears. Very poor contrast and even when you adjust the contrast via the settings menu it is still bad.

The sound quality is a lot better then the original SkyFI, however I believe that this is because the audio output is louder then the original.

If you have an original SkyFI home or car kit there is no need to buy a new one for the SkyFI II, when you plug the SkyFi II into anybase (except the boombox) you can activate the FM Modulator.

When you turn on the FM modulator and set it to any 88 MHz frequency the volume is increased from the lineout, however if you set it for the 107 Mhz frequencies the sound level is normal via the line outputs.

The stock feature is kind of cool, I plugged in XMSR, SIRI, DTV and DISH. I was kind of surprised they do not cover the DTV (DIRECTV) stocks though.

I found the Sports Score feature annoying though, in setting up I selected 3 NFL teams as well as NCAA Football, the NFL teams were showing the date of their next game and the NCAA was showing all the football games. I would like to select the NCAA teams who I want score for, also the NFL should not be displayed until there is a game. The Ticker for the sports scores is really slow especially when your waiting for your favorite team to scroll by.

I do really like the replay function. In fact today we were driving and my son heard a song he liked, he was singing along, when the song was over another song came on which stunk, he said he liked the last song and wished he could hear it again.

I told him I had magic powers at XM and then pressed the back button on the unit. BOOM his song played again. He kept asking me how I did it.

You can fast forward or rewind to your favorite part of the song, instead it only goes to the song when the song titles change. If you song starts before the on screen display changes you will miss the start of the song (first few seconds) for the most part however this is not a problem.

And thats my initial thoughts on the SkyFI II.

 

[pretzelboy]

Scott,

What is the major issue with the display? Does it somehow differ from the Roady displays in some big way? That's disappointing that they went from a display that washed in the sun to a display that's bad all the time.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Its hard to discribe the screen on the SkyFI 2, its washed out in places, and dark in other places. Little black lines going through it, the blacks have a lot of white in them, etc.

As I said its hard taking a picture of the problem, you really have to see it in person to understand it.

 

[o0bigs0o]

Picked up my SkyFi2 on Friday evening at the local CC after returning my original SkyFi (don't ya just luv Circuit CIty's no questions return policy!) and My display is streaky as well but not to the point that it is annoying. In fact, I prefer this color display than the original SkyFi's display and colors! The other feature that you have with the SkyFi2 is a reverse display ( light-on-dark or POSITIVE vs. dark-on-light or NEGATIVE) which is nice depending on the lighting conditions (sun).
I am much more pleased with the SkyFI2 than the original SkyFi .

Bigs

 

[pretzelboy]

Its hard to discribe the screen on the SkyFI 2, its washed out in places, and dark in other places. Little black lines going through it, the blacks have a lot of white in them, etc.

As I said its hard taking a picture of the problem, you really have to see it in person to understand it.

From what you're describing it sounds like what happens when torque is placed on an LCD display as if there's a slight twist in their mount or pressure is uneven on the corner mounting screws. You can get the same effect but slightly pushing or pulling on a corner of a laptop LCD panel. It sounds like Delphi has some quality control issues on the manufacturing but that's not a surprise. It wouldn't be the first time they've released an XM product with problems.

 

[pretzelboy]

Someone posted a picture of a SkyFi 2 display on 411 and it's pretty bad. Someone else mentioned they saw a display unit that had a bad display. Looks like Delphi has yet another defined quality control issue.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Yup a good picture of it at http://www.xm411.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=7697

Notice XM Buttkisser Ziggy comes to the rescue to tell us the reason for this is because they wanted to save money making the radio.

Let's be honest the screen on the SkyFI2 sucks, too bad its a nice radio besides that.

 

[pretzelboy]

And here I thought it was more like he was saying it's supposed to look like that.

 

[dalec21]

crap on me

I had read several posts about the streaking on the display and mine
has always been fine, it is a bland lifeless display, but no streaks or
anything perfectly clear

I had to go read the post http://www.xm411.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=7697
and it is obvious at a glance he has the brightness turned up too high,
out of curiosity I turned the brightness and contrast up all the way
and sure enough it looked just like the picture

now the point of the story, when I set the brightness/contrast back to where
they were supposed to be .. I still have a little streaking in the black bar
I kept adjusting and reduced it somewhat but there is still some streaking

thank goodness for CC's $19.95 service plan

..Dale

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

My brightness and contrast are set low and am still having streaking problems, and when I have the stock ticker going the streaking actually moves across the screen with the stock ticker.

My SkiFi2 also makes a "Squeek" when its powered off and I use my TV remote to change the channel on the TV. When it sees an IR from a remote is when the squeeking starts.

 

[src666]

Just wanted to chime in here. I just picked up one at CC ($99 still) today, and while I see the streaking problem, as long as the contrast is dialed down to 2 bars it's not that bad.

It is definately a flawed LCD design, with the vertical signal bleeding through even on rows where the horizontal line isn't energized. But all in all, I think it's a flaw that I can live with. The screen clarity seems just fine with the contrast set low.