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Strengths: Small size, big display, great sound, ease of use, minimal wires
Weaknesses: Limited display options, hardwired
Summary: I just had the XM Commander installed in my car within the last week, and I'll never listen to FM again. The sound is great, even FM modulated as my head unit didn't have aux inputs, and the small size is a tidy bonus.
What attracted me to the Commander was that it hardwired into the car. Even though it's what I specifically wanted, I list it as a weakness because I'm aware there will be those who would prefer portability from home to car to office, possibly to use it as a walkman. The commander stays in the car. The reason I liked that is that hardwiring the unit meant I didn't have a lot of cabin clutter to deal with, like wires and adapters and the like. There is only one cable that runs to the display unit (and with creative mounting, you don't even have to see that cord); the master unit is stashed behind the dash, out of sight.
The display has plusses and minusses. It's biggest plus is that it's big, even on such a small unit, so it can be easily read at a glance even while driving. It also allows previewing of songs playing on other channels without actually switching to them -- you never have to switch to a station that's currently playing a bad song. The drawback is that the color of the backlight can't be changed, so it may not match the other lights in your interior. It also has only two lines, which can be switched between displaying the song and artist, song and channel name/number, or artist and channel name/number (I keep mine on artist and song, and it does briefly display the channel name/number while changing channels). And the display doesn't scroll or anything of the like, so long titles or artist names can sometimes be cut off.
As for why you should be considering satellite radio in the first place, better sound, huge selection of channels (150+ on XM, 130+ on Sirius), no commercials on most channels (including all the music channels), and the same programming coast-to-coast, even in the middle of nowhere.

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