Home > Consumer Reviews > Delphi MyFi XM2GO Portable XM Satellite Radio Receiver with Home / Car Kits

I have been surprised and dismayed by the XM MyFi. One fairly critical piece of information left out of all materials is the fact that the antenna HAS TO FACE SOUTH IN ORDER TO OBTAIN ANY SIGNAL WHATSOEVER. Thankfully, the happy folks at XM Technical Support offered this encouragement when I noted that my office and home face north -- "You can still use it outside." Thanks. That might still be moderately helpful if the portable XM really worked well. Instead, you have to work into just the right position, like a sad, contorted scarecrow, in order to get a passable signal. Here I am, wired like a demented robot with an earphone cord as well as (another thing they hesitate to mention) antenna cord pinned to me, and if I move (Lord forbid that you move with the music), the signal cracks and disappears.
This product was introduced long before XM had the technology to support it. Odd that AM radio (and possibly even ham radio) are starting to look better all the time. Hmmm.

The Delphi MyFi was my first foray into the XM Satellite world and I must say it has been full of highs and lows. I purchased my unit about 4 months ago and have been both pleased and frustrated with the experience.

First off my thoughts on satellite radio in general. If you are a first time subscriber you may want to aim for a lower end receiver before making the financial commitment to the MyFi. Granted the price on the MyFi has dropped considerably since earlier in the year. I paid around $230 with a $50 rebate I just received. Now it is at $125 after rebate. XM itself has a great lineup and is superior to Sirius if not very similar. I personally enjoy XM's NHL coverage and that made my choice easy. The negatives to Satellite have been mainly reception issues. Unlike standard radio which loses signal in tunnels, under power lines, or if you drive out of range, Satellite loses signal far easier. A small highway overpass, trees, etc. are all it takes to disrupt the signal. Can be very frustrating at times especially since it takes time to recapture the signal. Also adding to the problem is if you happen to drive near another Satellite user tuned to the same FM station as your unit you will find signals crossing and pickup their stations instead. For a while this was only a nusiance but now that I am driving an SUV I have had an extremely difficult time mounting the antenna on a location that keeps a consistent signal.

Now to the unit. As a car receiver the MyFi is solid. 30 presets, decent remote, and several mounting options. The vent mount kit is very flimsy though and took a beating from the vehicle vibration. I recently hardmounted the unit and found it much stabler. Presets are essential tools and fairly easy to navigate and as long as the volume in the unit is sufficient the sound quality is very good. Having to change FM frequency's during trips can be annoying and while driving can be a hassle and unsafe.

The biggest cons to me were:

The channel wheel is in an awkward place on the side. In order to change channels you have to place your hand over the units screen to manuever the wheel adequately. Not a big deal but annoying. Also I really dislike having to press the wheel in to select a station. The arrow keys on the front of the unit do not change or select channels at all.

The screen's color configuration can be very hard to read in some lighting. FOr instance if it is very sunny out the screens grey-scale text on white screen can be virtually invisible. Also late at night the contrast can either glare in your eyes or be hard to focus on. The only other color option is to reverse the scale to white text on grey-scale which is even worse. This makes searching for channels or reading song titles/scores/etc while driving difficult and dangerous.

The units buttons do light up but even in a dark setting are hard to read. Once you memorize the layout this problem goes away.

Finally another knock can be that the unit is powered seperately from the car so it does not turn off when you power off your car. Instead you have to power the unit up or down when you get in and out.

As a home or office radio is where I found this unit to excel. I set mine up with a set of high quality JBL speakers and can carry my XM with me into my office. The remote allows you navigate channels easily and store your unit in convenient places. Also the unit ships with a home antenna and power source so as not to waste the battery.

Finally the portability option. This is what led me to choose the MyFi. I like be able to remove my XM receiver from my car everywhere I go for security reasons. Also you can bring to radio to your home, office, car, and travel. You can easily bring your XM to any car regardless of them having been set up as well. The battery is suffient and I have never killed it. However at one point the unit did die and refuse to start up even after charging. I called tech support and was instructed to remove the back cover, batter and use a needle to reset the unit. This apparently is a problem with the unit and I have had to do this 3 times now. It's not difficult but again annoying.

The portable antenna itself is a nice feature but does not work very well. While you can bring your MyFi into a friends car and tune it there the portable antenna loses reception very quickly even if you have it mounted high. Walking or running with the unit is the worst. I took my MyFi hiking several times before giving up. The clip on antenna loses reception regularly as you walk. Also the unit itself is fairly bulky and unvomfortable. Kind of like an old walkman.

Finally the unit itself looks to be constructed of metal but is really just hard plastic. It feels to me as if you ever dropped this unit on a hard surface at anything higher than a foot or two it would shatter. It appears to be very delicate. As for the recording feature I know it works as a radio DVR however I never use it so I will not comment on it.

Even with all the gripes I think the MyFi is a good option for portability from your car to your home/office. The actual Ipod like functonality to me has been worthless and inoperative most of the time. As the price drops for this unit I think it is more advisable to go for the Delphi unit but if you are new to XM or looking for a really good portable unit you may want to wait until next years enhanced models which hopefully will have better receiving antennas which are less bulky. If you can't wait this unit is good. It is great for anti-theft and has versatility over hard mounted receivers. All in all a decent product but could have been better designed.

During December and January I did a lot of research on this unit. I was looking to upgrade from my SkyFi and the look and promise of the MyFi was tempting to a guy like me who has to have all the new toys. I chickened out of buying the MyFi and bought a SkyFi2 instead because of all the negative reviews I had read about the MyFi. After getting my taxes back recently I decided to take the plunge on the MyFi after saying to myself I would wait until the next model. If you are going to buy this unit, you must keep an open mind about one thing: you are NOT going to get reception wherever you want. That's life, that's the way that anything satellite, whether radio or television works. When you install tv, the dish faces South to get reception. Anyway, I am truly happy with the unit, it functions as good in the house and the car as the SkyFi and is easier to move between the two. I love the X2GO feature, and it's great to record 5 plus hours of music or talk. I would recommend this unit, but you should do some research on where you live to check out how the reception is where you live. If you go into the purchase not expecting to get reception no matter where you are or what you're doing, you will love this unit

I bought my unit about 3 weeks ago. After quite a lot of use, I'm very pleased with it. I researched for a few months before deciding to buy and I think I read every user review on the 'net. I had pretty realistic expectations about the unit before I went to buy. I expected to have problems with reception, but I'm happy to report that it's better than I anticipated. I haven't noticed any problems with sound quality, it sounds fine to me. It's not tinny or anything. As far as some reports of low volume when playing through an FM radio, there's an option on the menu that lets you change the line-out volume. So that hasn't been a problem either.

Before I purchased my unit, I had a lot of questions that I couldn't find the answers to. I hope that anyone reading this might find some answers to their questions.

1) How well does it work indoors? I was a bit leery about how well it would work inside my office building. I don't sit near a window and I don't sit facing south. So I went into this with the expectation that it might not work and I'd have to return the unit (since I expected to use it the most at work). I tried the home antenna first and could not get a constant signal. Out of desperation, I used the vehicle antenna and it worked far better. In fact, out of all the antennas, the vehicle antenna works the best. Most days the signal is strong enough not to have any interruptions, but I have had problems during solar storms. Luckily, those are infrequent.

2)How well does it work in the car? I'm just about the only person left in the world that doesn't have a cassette player or cd player in my car. I never needed one, I don't spend a huge amount of time driving. The FM transmitter is one of the features that interested me. Although all the MyFi's frequencies have a radio station on or near that frequency, I still get very good reception from my unit. And I don't even have the car kit installed yet, I just put the unit on the passenger seat. As I've already said, the vehicle antenna is great, it really pulls in a good signal and the magnet is strong enough to stay put on the roof or trunk of your car without getting blown around.

3)How well does it work while walking around? I haven't had any problems, although I find the portable antenna's clip is hard to place on a collar or backpack. They should've put a spring clip on it.

4)How is the content? I'm pretty happy with the content of the XM service. There is always something to listen to. However, I was a bit disappointed that the "commercial free" channels do have brief station breaks after every few songs. For me, "Commercial Free" means all music with no interruptons. I wanted satellite radio to get away from that stuff. But the number of music channels is well worth it. Also, the content of the channels is great. I've heard old favorites that haven't seen the light of day in decades, and found a bunch of new favorites. There's a channel for every musical taste, from the 40s to now. Pop, Rock, Country, Bluegrass, Oldies, Punk, Metal, Classical, Reggae, African, Norwegian shouting choruses...you name it, there's a channel on XM devoted to it. Add in all the news and sports channels, plus MTV, VH1, E!, Discovery channel, and just about every venue of talk radio on Earth and I'm never bored. I have to say that the Top 40 channels seem to have a less varied play list, but the "Decades" channels rarely repeat songs.

5) How long is battery life? On a fully charged battery (that is, I put it on the charger and let it charge overnight, a good 10 hours), I can get about 6 hours in before it cuts off. I would've liked to have seen a longer battery life, but at least they give you a car adapter and an ac adapter

What do I think the pros are?
+Tune select: Ever switch the channel on the radio and catch just the last few seconds of your favorite song or artist? Well, the MyFi has a function where you save the artists/songs you like and it will alert you when they come on. LOVE IT!

+XM2Go: Schedule it to record the night before and you have 5 hours of content to enjoy any time. You can also record individual songs/content as they play. You can't transfer it to a computer or MP3 player, but that's not what I bought the unit for anyway.

+With the remote, you can scroll through channels to see what artist is playing. Press the display button again and you can see what song is playing.

What are the cons?
-As I said before, I had problems with getting a constant signal during a solar storm, but that was in and out and only lasted a day or 2. Not a big deal.

-There's no way to roam through the channels. You can add channels to 3 sets of 10 presets, but it's clumsy. Out of 135 stations, I can only pick 30 to flip through easily? And you have to switch between the 3 presets. In Direct mode, you either have to use the scroll wheel to scroll through the channels, then push the wheel to select, punch in each channel number, or use the remote. Either way, it's not terribly easy to do while you're driving 70 mph down the freeway on your way to work.

-Price: I think they'd sell a lot more of these if they lowered the priced by about $100. Then again, no one can keep them in stock, so I guess prices isn't that big a problem.

Overall, I'm impressed and very happy with my unit, and I recommend it to anyone wanting to get into satellite radio. The few irritating aspects really shouldn't dissuade you from buying such a great product. I put mine in the car on my way to work, listen at work, listen on the way home and while I'm walking the dog. Try that with your SkyFi2!

EDIT: 08/20/2005 - A month after I got my MyFi, it quit charging, so I returned it to the store and got a replacement. Now the replacement unit is doing the same thing, and I have to return it to Delphi. After reading up a bit on the internet, I discovered that there are durability issues with the MyFi, but Delphi has come out with a slightly newer version, so hopefully it will work better. But while it worked, it was great!

I've had my MyFi for about one month now. I won't rehash the details that are spelled out in the Amazon product description and many of the other reviews. Like many people, I was curious about Satellite Radio, and particularly XM given its more reasonable subscription service fee. But the problem was always that I wanted the option of listening to it at the 3 places where most of us spend our time: home, work and the car. If you had to by a receiver for each of those, you would have to pay about [...] month for 1 main [...] and 2 "family" ($[...]) subscriptions. That's where the MyFi comes in. Yes, it may cost about $[...] up front, but you can get by with 1 unit and 1 subscription to serve all 3 purposes, with the ADDED benefit of being able to store programming to listen to on airplane flights and other places where you cannot get reception.

The biggest debate seems to be about reception quality. First, you CAN get reception in a high-rise. I work on the 10th floor of a building and use the Home antenna at my window...it comes in at the 3 maximum signal strength. If you are unsure about your situation, find a friend who has the MyFi and borrow the unit and Home kit for a day to test it before you buy. My friend let me do that and I knew it would work at my office. As for the auto, while the instructions say to put the magnetic antenna outside the car, you can get reception on the inside if you have a sunroof. I just put my antenna up and slide the sunroof cover over to hold it and it works perfectly. For the personal antenna, it leaves a bit to be desired. If you are sitting outside in the same place (a stadium seat, a park bench, etc.) you can lock in reception and be fine. If you walk or run around, you'll notice some drop-off. I agree with the others who suggest the best option for moving as a portable is to use the record feature and buy a nice set of headphones to listen to the music. The bottom line is that with a 5 hour record feature and 5-hour battery, you can fly coast-to-coast and still be able to listen to XM Radio the entire flight with the MyFi.

I'm assuming once Delphi catches up to the demand of the MyFi, that the option for purchasing an extra Home antenna kit will be available, as well as extra batteries and so on. The product is so new that it is hard to find accessories. I just bought an extra antenna that will work on the home kit for around $30 on an auction website. That way, I can leave my Home antenna at home and use the extra for work. The MyFi is small enough to pop in my pocket and carry it around from home to car to work easily.

If you have any doubts about XM Radio, I highly recommend going to the XM website and sign up for the free 3-day internet trial (you'll need a high speed connection). The service is truly amazing. There is a station for every mood and taste, and XM creates the perfect balance of having no commercials but with a personal DJ who pops in every so often to make it feel like a real radio station. I don't care for the Music Choice DirecTV/cable channels that are so sterile with no live voice anywhere. And the DJs on some of the channels have freedom to select songs just like in the old days of FM radio before 2 corporate conglomerates bought up every radio station in most major markets and mandated playlists with the same 20 songs acceptable to focus groups.

I could not stand the LA radio market any longer, and so if you too are fed up with what your radio choices are, the MyFI with XM Radio is the perfect solution to convert. You'll love it!!