XM or Sirius?
 

I am currently driving a rental that has XM radio. I know, a rental w/ XM? WTF? Well I ain't complaining. I got to play with it on my commute to work and I must say, XM is great! You can browse through each station by catagory which makes it very easy to find stations you like out of the 250+ stationas. You also get artist and song information which most radio stations don't offer. I know BMW only offers Sirius but I'm pretty sure it functions basically like XM. Can anyone comment. Is navigating through stations pretty simple with the BMW controls? The rental had a couple extra buttons just for XM. I'm saving up for a Pioneer AVIC N2 navaigation which supports XM and XMtraffic. Anyone used XMtraffic?

wait can you get xm?

If you'd like to get XM, the only option thus far (that I know of) for seamless integration using the steering wheel controls is XM Direct. However, to my knowledge, it is incompatible with Nav & DSP. Had it in my '04 X3, and LOVED it! As for Sirius, I have tried it as well, and the only real difference is in the sports category. Sirius, for the most part, has a moratorium on professional sports, except for baseball. As for the various genres of music, there really isn't much of a difference IMO. XM Direct, of course, is less expensive than the Sirius BMW receiver. There's not much of a difference in the monthly cost.
For more info on XM Direct:
http://www.xm411.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=1804

I can only speak for Sirius in my X5. Love it. Can use the buttons to flip through the pre-sets. It is integrated into the Nav screen.

I personally like Sirius over XM just because I have more of my favorite channels on Sirius...

Sirius
 

IMHO XM is poop. I had it for about 3 months and gave it away after having a rental with Sirius. I like the Sirius music channels more, sports is better and talk is better. XM just signed up that baffoon Oprah. I'm not paying a company to hear her yap about sexual predators and hear the struggle to keep her weight below 350...

XM all the way...can't live without it! Love that comedy channel 150!

The XM Direct is great! I almost never listen to "regular" radio anymore.

I have Sirius in our X3 and my Honda S2000 (I also had it in my previous Audi) and get XM through my DirecTV satellite subscription. I think the real choice here is what *you* want to listen to and which station does a better job of delivering that specific programming.

FWIW I don't listen to any form of talk radio or sports - strictly music and I find that the playlists on Sirius tend to be fairly short so you will get gobs of repeats if you listen to it a lot.

XM seems to fit my own programming tastes a little better but I never would have known that until DirecTV piped their channels into my house as a part of my TV subscriptions.

I enjoy Sirius for talk radio including Howard Stern. Yep, I like him. :)