Having previously had an XM unit hardwired in my car, the Installation was pretty straight forward. Unfortunately, the bracket for the Rock 'N' Road doesn't fit the same bracket as the MyFi, so I had to remove my dash mount and use the windshield mount provided with the unit. I also installed a Gillson GPS antenna which I mounted on the roof near my XM antenna. Upon starting the unit this time I went to the XM screen.

The screen is very easy to use, very straight forward. My only complaint was the Tune Select "button" is faded out to the point that I didn't even know it was there to activate for a few days until my wife asked about it. Once turned on, the Tune Select works faster than any other XM unit I have used in the past, alerting you within the first few seconds of the song starting. The alerts buttons are large and easy to use. Also, when adding songs/artists to Tune Select, it lists how many remaining slots you have, so you can easily maintain your favorite songs.

Presets are a bit of a problem. When pressing the preset button, you see a screen of 10 digits, then you must press the station, then select. Too many presses for driving if you ask me. I tend to scroll through my presets with the channel up/down. When navigating your presets like this, the receiver switches quickly, so don't look to preview the track names and artists while flipping through. In general, if you stay within your favorite 10 stations, this unit is great. If you have a wider variety that you listen to, this unit can be a bit more difficult to use.

Back to Navigation now. When you go back to the main menu with XM turned on, you can activate the Navigation program. XM will display station number and allow you to change channels in a very simple sidebar. This doesn't get in the way and proves to be very useful.  You don't see any track information, but click the XM logo and you're taken to the XM radio screen.

As far as directions go, the Navigation offers a few view standard view modes and a fairly impressive list of POI. Searching for these POI can be a major hassle. I found searching for specific businesses to be more trouble than it's worth in many cases. If you're driving through a new town looking for a place to eat or a gas station, it is very easy to search by distance.  All in all, it's not so bad, the weaknesses aren't so bad that I'd get rid of it and definitely has it's strong points.

I bought this unit as a Navigation device with integrated XM.  The purpose was to give my wife GPS and XM without the dashboard clutter. For this purpose, we are both very happy. If that were all the Rock 'N' Road was, then it would be a huge success. But it's more than that, and that's where this unit will disappoint.

First is the remote. The remote is in the slim credit card style and beyond the power and volume controls, is completely useless. The button layout is cryptic and to allow the use between various features (Navigation, XM, mp3, photo) the buttons are labels with letters and function numbers. I played with it for 5 minutes while my wife drove and decided I was better off throwing it out the window than holding onto it for later use. (Don't worry, I did not toss it out the window. Littering is bad.) Given that the unit is less than an arms length away from the driver or passenger, I see no use for the remote.

To play with the mp3 player and photo viewer I pulled my memory card from my phone, slid it into an adapter and then into the unit. Nothing. I switched from Hard Drive to SD Card and it never found the card. So I went inside, copied a couple folders into the root directory full of images and music. The photo viewer found the images, but the mp3 player never found the music folders, let alone the files. Upon trying to move these to the root directory, the unit kept crashing, so I gave up.  I didn't see a need to try playing video on the unit since music was beyond it's abilities. Thankfully we have the iPod in the car because the 8GB of free space is essentially useless.

When I did get the photo viewer to work, the viewer would stretch images to fit the screen.  I didn't see any options to change this setting and found the feature to be essentially useless.

So there it is. As I said, for an integrated XM/GPS unit, Jensen does a solid job. If you need the mp3 player, photo viewer and see this as an alternative to your iPod with GPS functionality, keep looking. Don't forget that to use XM the unit requires an XM Mini-Tuner that is not included with your purchase. The backup cam requires the use of the docking station, which I haven't been able to find available anywhere.

You can read more from Mario at Brewed For Thought, where he writes about his experience with home and craft brewing.