I am thinking about puting a satellite radio in our new truck (well SUV) and was wondering if anyone (or any two or andy three) would care to give an opinion of which is the better of the services, and two, who (besides eBay) will sell me a unit and let me pay thru paypal?

Thanks

I think it depends on what kind of music you want to listen to. I found Sirius to be better for inde / alternative but they didn't have a punk channel. XM has a good punk channel. When I had sirius they claimed to have a punk channel but they played more rap on it than anything else.

This is sometimes a heated argument (at least in New York) between the Howard (Sirius) fans and Opie & Anthony (XM) fans. I have XM. I think the music selection for my tastes (nu-metal, heavy alternative, etc.) is great on XM. XM's equipment also seems to be a lot smaller and well designed.

XM had the MyFI for about a year now which is a walkman-like device that can receive and record up to 5 hours of satellite on the go. Sirius just released their portable and it cannot receive satellite while out of its dock and its recording capacity is only 1 hour. Sirius' in-car units are also extremely large compared to XM's.

I was in a store this weekend checking out the Sirius Sportster Replay my friend bought his wife. The unit on display was throwing off a ton of heat. It's also huge compared to the XM Roady XT.

It seems like XM is the better company in my opinion. This is based on stock value, their equipment, and their unwillingness to throw around millions of dollars to acquire talent that probably can't return the investment (Howard Stern ($500 million), Martha Stewart ($30 million), and Tony Hawk are most notable).

Please note that I don't have Sirius, so I can't tell you specifics about their service. So, take my opinion with a grain of salt.

I've got both services. I would say to try out each service on line (free trial) and try and sample as many channels as you can, or at least the musical genres that intrest you.

Again you will run into a very "heated" debate on which service is better, but either beats AM//FM hands down. Check out Sirius Backstage and XM Fan more info.

The S50 cannot receive live content yet, but Sirius will have a "live" portable out in 06. We don't yet know if it will be a add on to the current S50 or a new device.

As far as the music goes, I like Classic Rock and "jambands" in these genres Sirius wins in my opinion. XM's playlist is very deep and sometimes too obscure for my tastes.

For sports, if that interests you, it depends on which sports you like. Sirius has the NFL and NBA locked up, while XM has Baseball. For now they share the NHL (XM has a GREAT hockey talk channel!!) but in 2007 it will be an XM exclusive. They also both have plently of college sports.

Sirius has been a bit behind in the receiver department. Some say though, and I agree, that while the Sirius units are larger and "hotter" than the XM ones they seem to have a better designed interface.

I woudn't worry about either service going belly up anytime soon. Both are growing by leaps and bounds. If anything worry about what you're going to be hearing out of your AM/FM radio!

EDIT: I don't know where you get a receiver and pay via paypal. I've used The Sirius Store and can recommend them, but they don't take paypal.