Suprisingly better than I expected.

I admit it. I've owned two of these things. The first one broke, but I accept full responsibility for that.

Backstory; I work a really horrific job, under the authority of really horrific people, where I am subjected to dealing with really horrific customers who yell and scream at me when the people who I report to screw everything up. Basically, I am at the bottom of the ladder in every single possible respect. I work as a delivery driver. I don't make a ton of money. "wah, woe is me."

Point of all of this is that I am really unable to afford spending over 200 dollars on a satellite radio. Heck, I can't even afford 100 dollars. Even 50 bucks in questionable. Yet, I crave entertainment. I need it. I'm on the road for hours on end each day, and it's worth paying $12.95 a moth to preserve my sanity. In order to enjoy the service when head into work, or come home, I must transfer the unit back and forth between the work vehicle, and my own personal car. In other words, it's never stationary, and tends to get moved around quite a bit.

That being said, I purchased my first of these units over a year ago, just prior to Christmas. It had a cost of 50 dollars, with a 25 dollar mail-in rebate. Not a bad price at all. I really expected it to fall apart by the end of the week, but surprisingly, it stayed together for about a year, right up until the company I work for had a get together, and encouraged the employees to take food home. Picture this; A giant Italian spread, complete with homemade bread and that really awesome olive oil and pesto sauce concoction for the bread. Now, imagine me taking a giant plastic container of that olive oil, putting it in a (allegedly) sealed bag, and then putting that bag inside of another, larger bag, along with some of my personal items, one of which being my Sirius receiver. Okay, I am big enough to admit that I am more than capable of being completely stupid at any given moment in time. Kind of like the moment when I somehow managed to get burns all over my hand when I accidentally set my mattress on fire. Stuff happens.

Anyway, the end result was a radio that probably tasted better than any other radio on Earth, but I didn't sample any of it. Besides, we don't judge radios based on their taste, do we?

All of the rubber for the buttons expanded so much, that it broke the unit into two separate pieces. I got frustrated, glued everything back together, and to this day it still works, although the oil made the display become even harder to read. I couldn't deal with it, so after a day I went and purchased a new radio. Luckily Radio Shack had the exact same model, only it was now 20 bucks out the door. I bought it, plugged it in, and that was a few months ago. It still works perfect.

As far as the unit itself, it's not fantastic. It's about the size of an ipod, which makes moving it around easy. It isn't flashy, and short cuts were clearly made in putting it together. The FM modulator isn't all that powerful. Occasionally it gets overpowered by other units in passing cars. I can't fault the build quality on it all that much, because it did sustain a barrage of oily goodness, as well as the daily in and out of being transferred from one vehicle to another. Sure, the casing broke, but I don't think the designers anticipated someone doing what I did, nor would I expect them to do so. Regardless of the casing breaking, the radio inside kept on working. The display is terrible, and it's rather difficult to see during daytime.

In comparison to other upscale radios that friends and co-workers have, it's a piece of garbage. For the price, it's a good entry level unit, with obvious shortcomings.