You are not confused. You are correct if you are talking about Infiniti's Sat Radio in the stock head unit.

And I agree with CleverClaire. XM has a much better playlist and I have had both as well.

Get Sirius IF you want to listen to the NBA or NFL and your AM/FM radio won't pick up the games, or if you love Howard Stern.

If you want traffic and weather and your city is covered, XM is better for that (or at least was a few months ago).

Otherwise, you should listen to the stations on-line and decide who has the better playlists.

Also, the voice quality on the talk stations is better with XM. Neither are great, but XM puts more bandwidth on those stations.

 

If I go with the aftermarket XM, where does the unit go? Is there a good place for it that would be good aestetically and function wise? What about the antenae? On the stock version is it incorporated into the node on the roof or is that just the navi?

 

OK, ignore the cable issues. I will have it hardwired soon and that should clean things up a bit.

I am using a "low boy" stand that I bought on-line. It has a nice L shape and fits almost perfectly in this spot. It doesn't bother the passenger and I can see it easily.

I like it here.

 

I think the aftermarket will be there in some shape or form regardless.
I mean, if you have the option for full integration, not many people are going to choose to install an aftermarket unit like the SkyFi. So in theory, if they are more interested in the after market, they would do this.

However, Delphi has a huge OEM interest. I think the reason you don't see more features offered like you do in say Acura's RL and Caddy's CTS and STS is that manufacturers have just been slow to adapt, or these pieces were not included as part of the original design of their products, but that there products were adapted to take advantage of features like XM/MP3. The Acura and GM products add Traffic and the display info you mention as part of the SkyFi package.

Infiniti for example is using essentially the same minuture display screen they have always used in the G35, albeit now with additional functionallity as part of the whole system. I would imagine that the M35/45 shows far more text since it uses an LCD to display the info.
At this point, Infiniti doesn't want to reinvent the wheel (probably due to cost) on a 3/4life car.

I personally would rather have complete integration any day. One less piece of equipement to be using while driving. Companies like Pioneer and Alpine were quick to advance the use of XM and IPods, in there aftermarket products. Some utilize features better than others.

Bottom line:
The reason Infiniti's head unit can display scrolling lines of characters with RDS and MP3, but not Sat radio is due to the Sat receivers they are using.

 

Just to clarify, the head unit display doesn't SCROLL, it flips "pages".

 

I think I am now more unclear. What do you mean "flip pages". I've never gotten it to display more than just the 10 characters of XM information.

 

I'm not speaking specifically for satellite, but for AM/FM RDS, it displays 10 characters, then "flips" to the next set of 10 characters, etc.

Scrolling would refer to the 10 characters shifting to the left one character at a time and wrapping around.

 

Wow, no positive comments on my extremely clean, factory looking install? hehe