The Status 4 system from SIRIUS is a Swiss Army knife of satellite radio goodness. Instead fo buying a single system with limited use, the SV4TK1 comes with an arsenal of accessories and adapters to make good use of the system in your home, on the road or anywhere you can imagine.

The Stratus 4 arrives in the box with the radio head unit, a vehicle dock, an adhesive dash mount, and a vent mount (complete with extended vent hooks for difficult vehicle makes). There is also a magnetic antenna, and FM extender antenna--of which about 30 pages of the User Manual are dedicated to correctly identifying and mounting. It's really not all that hard, but the bottom line is that SIRIUS wants you to have the best possible antenna reception possible. To sum it all up: locate the FM antenna as close to the car's existing FM antenna as possible, running the extender antenna along the glass of the vehicle and begin sure to avoid defroster wires or anything that would damage or interfere with the antenna.

Once it was installed, the SIRIUS Stratus 4 proved to be very easy to use. First of all, if your car doesn't have a way to take the audio output from the SIRIUS satellite radio, you can simply engage the wireless audio mode and the unit will broadcast audio to an unused FM radio band. This is less desirable and definitely results in lower fidelity, but it's a cheaper alternative than buying a new car or car radio. Additionally, we found the category list browsing to be efficient and easy, and the amber LCD display makes it extremely easy to see meta information such as the broadcaster/channel, artist/host name, and song title. Signal strength is always present at the top right of the display. Overall channel selection was easy, and using the system couldn't be any simpler.

The Strata 4 was easy is a great system with an easy-to-read LCD display and plenty of satellite radio-centric features. Installing it in a vehicle is a difficult process if you want to get the best performance, however, so we recommend you understand what's involved before you embark on adding this satellite radio to your car.

Pros: Conveniently portable, docks with many SIRIUS speakers
Cons: Complex vehicle setup for best performance, finicky reception

Warranty
1 year