does anyone care/use fm radio of phone or dedicated radio? and which country are you in?

[oali24]

I'm someone who likes listening to fm radio, no data and always works if reception is good, to the point that I would not buy a phone without one, its a requirement for me, does anyone else feel like that? I have also noticed that phones with fm radios still tend to be midrange/budget phones that are targeted towards low/middle income countries, like I have a Nokia 3.1 with one and my Samsung A51, both with fm radio, and I noticed that the poco phone linus showed off in a shortcircuit video had one, they all feel like their targeted towards developing countries, I don't have solid data to back this up but I feel that in developing countries there is more competition between manufacturers and especially carriers, here in Jordan there are 3 major phone/data carriers, Zain, Orange and Umniah, they are all in the same areas basically and for perspective, Jordan is about the size of the US state of Maine, and from what I've heard, carriers in US seem to have control over very large areas so that they don't need to compete. Maybe the US doesn't care as much about those sort of features or that there is less interest in adding features like fm radio that are basically standard in developing countries, can anyone from US tell me if I have it correct.

[Spotty]

1 minute ago, oali24 said:

I have also noticed that phones with fm radios still tend to be midrange/budget phones that are targeted towards low/middle income countries, like I have a Nokia 3.1 with one and my Samsung A51, both with fm radio, and I noticed that the poco phone linus showed off in a shortcircuit video had one, they all feel like their targeted towards developing countries

FM radios in phones use the wired headphones as the antenna to receive the signal. A lot of high end phones are ditching the headphone jack which is why they won't support FM radio. It might be that customers in certain regions are more likely to buy a phone that is capable of receiving a FM radio signal and they're trying to cater to that market, but most likely it's just people buying phones that are more likely to have a 3.5mm headphone jack.

 

I assume for most people radio is not a feature they're particularly interested in with their phone and with the popularity of streaming services such as Spotify I don't see there being much demand for FM radios in phones in the future.

 

To answer your question the last time I used FM radio on a phone would have been around 10 or more years ago, and that was only maybe once just to see if it worked. I don't know anyone who has ever used their phone for radio.

[Prodigy_Smit]

I use fm radio in my car because I can’t choose music to listen to and data is expensive. I would not buy a phone based on the presence of a fm radio.

[oali24]

22 minutes ago, Spotty said:

FM radios in phones use the wired headphones as the antenna to receive the signal. A lot of high end phones are ditching the headphone jack which is why they won't support FM radio. It might be that customers in certain regions are more likely to buy a phone that is capable of receiving a FM radio signal and they're trying to cater to that market, but most likely it's just people buying phones that are more likely to have a 3.5mm headphone jack.

 

I assume for most people radio is not a feature they're particularly interested in with their phone and with the popularity of streaming services such as Spotify I don't see there being much demand for FM radios in phones in the future.

 

To answer your question the last time I used FM radio on a phone would have been around 10 or more years ago, and that was only maybe once just to see if it worked. I don't know anyone who has ever used their phone for radio.

I'm kind of surprised from that response, because I thought Australia is one of those sparsely populated  countries where data coverage sucks, or maybe Australia's so big that am radio would be needed to really cover a good number of people.

[Mling]

lol I use fm in my car when im driving and am too busy to pull my phone out and connect an app. FM works until i reach traffic and then I can connect my phone and select a song.

[Mling]

12 minutes ago, oali24 said:

I'm kind of surprised from that response, because I thought Australia is one of those sparsely populated  countries where data coverage sucks, or maybe Australia's so big that am radio would be needed to really cover a good number of people.

australia is a sparsly covered country and they have towers down every road like any normal western nation.

[Spotty]

26 minutes ago, oali24 said:

I'm kind of surprised from that response, because I thought Australia is one of those sparsely populated  countries where data coverage sucks, or maybe Australia's so big that am radio would be needed to really cover a good number of people.

Mobile coverage isn't that much of an issue. The problem is that our fixed internet sucks.

Australia is a big place but most Australian's live in a relatively narrow band on the east coast. The rest is pretty much empty. Where people live there is generally good enough mobile coverage.

 

Spoiler

 

 

Optus mobile coverage maps

 

Telstra mobile coverage map

 

 

People do listen to FM/AM radio, just not using their phone. For most people it will be while they work or while they're driving in the car. I see quite a few tradies on job sites with those FM radios that use the same rechargeable batteries their tools use.

No-one is going to pull out their phone and plug in a 3.5mm FM radio antenna and listen to the radio on the crappy speaker in their phone.

 

[akio123008]

I don't use it on my phone but on my old radio.

 

There's also this stupid push towards digital broadcasting radio but I hate that, because the old radio I use doesn't support it and because I feel like it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. The people pushing this are all going on about "better sound" while my FM receiver sounds perfectly crisp (on a pretty good quality stereo mind you), or about "how many stations you can receive" while no one listens to more than say 5 stations (just like no one watches all 500 cable TV channels because most are crap anyway). 

 

To me digital radio is just another unnecessary layer of complexity and I don't see the extra value of it, except that some companies can start selling products because people are going to have to replace their old radios.

[oali24]

4 hours ago, akio123008 said:

I don't use it on my phone but on my old radio.

 

There's also this stupid push towards digital broadcasting radio but I hate that, because the old radio I use doesn't support it and because I feel like it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. The people pushing this are all going on about "better sound" while my FM receiver sounds perfectly crisp (on a pretty good quality stereo mind you), or about "how many stations you can receive" while no one listens to more than say 5 stations (just like no one watches all 500 cable TV channels because most are crap anyway). 

 

To me digital radio is just another unnecessary layer of complexity and I don't see the extra value of it, except that some companies can start selling products because people are going to have to replace their old radios.

one advantage of digital radio is that it needs less transmission power, and digital doesn't have static, I use a toshiba pocket radio and the static is reallly bad in my room, mind you its not that it doesn't work its just that its more convenient to not have to worry about getting the antenna exactly right, I don't know too much about digital radio though because we don't have it here in Jordan.

[flibberdipper]

FM radio on phones used to be a requirement for me until I just got sick and tired of Android and decided to become an iSheep. Though even now, I think I'm going to try and keep a phone around that supports it for as long as I can since it is very nice to have.

[oali24]

4 hours ago, Spotty said:

People do listen to FM/AM radio, just not using their phone. For most people it will be while they work or while they're driving in the car. I see quite a few tradies on job sites with those FM radios that use the same rechargeable batteries their tools use.

No-one is going to pull out their phone and plug in a 3.5mm FM radio antenna and listen to the radio on the crappy speaker in their phone.

 

to be fair, you probably notice much difference in quality between a crappy phone speaker and some other speakers because even fm radio is not that good when it comes to audio quality.

[flibberdipper]

2 minutes ago, oali24 said:

even fm radio is not that good when it comes to audio quality.

Gonna have to disagree there. Even on my cheap and fairly shitty LG Stylo 4 I have as a spare phone, if you get a station with good signal it can sound obnoxiously good. If it weren't for a lack of low-end punch, sometimes you could damn near confuse it with a decent internet stream. Though who knows, maybe the way we do things here in the US are different from how it's done over where you are.

[oali24]

2 minutes ago, flibberdipper said:

Gonna have to disagree there. Even on my cheap and fairly shitty LG Stylo 4 I have as a spare phone, if you get a station with good signal it can sound obnoxiously good. If it weren't for a lack of low-end punch, sometimes you could damn near confuse it with a decent internet stream. Though who knows, maybe the way we do things here in the US are different from how it's done over where you are.

yeah I'm not disputing how good it sounds, its just not going to be all that "high fidelity" even compared to say, a high bitrate mp3, like if you want the best sound for your hifi system with nice speakers/headphones, fm radio isn't it, I don't consider myself an audiophile but to me it is somewhat noticeable.

[Murasaki]

I listened to one radio station since it had the music I loved in particular. I gotta say if you ever want a phone with an FM Radio, its a Lumia 640! It's FM receiver was amazing, signal unrivaled to any other phone I had, perfect reception where others couldn't detect anything and even with a slight loss all it did was lower the volume while filtering all static. Amazing.

 

Also with that phone I discovered a bug when I was on Windows 10 Mobile, the FM radio app bugged out and I managed to get perfect reception without a headset plugged in!

So all that "you need to insert 3.5mm into me to get antenna" is kinda bs but it may vary according to a device's capability to serve as a standalone antenna.

 

I still listen to radio from time to time but mostly online nowadays.

[Commodus]

6 hours ago, oali24 said:

I'm someone who likes listening to fm radio, no data and always works if reception is good, to the point that I would not buy a phone without one, its a requirement for me, does anyone else feel like that? I have also noticed that phones with fm radios still tend to be midrange/budget phones that are targeted towards low/middle income countries, like I have a Nokia 3.1 with one and my Samsung A51, both with fm radio, and I noticed that the poco phone linus showed off in a shortcircuit video had one, they all feel like their targeted towards developing countries, I don't have solid data to back this up but I feel that in developing countries there is more competition between manufacturers and especially carriers, here in Jordan there are 3 major phone/data carriers, Zain, Orange and Umniah, they are all in the same areas basically and for perspective, Jordan is about the size of the US state of Maine, and from what I've heard, carriers in US seem to have control over very large areas so that they don't need to compete. Maybe the US doesn't care as much about those sort of features or that there is less interest in adding features like fm radio that are basically standard in developing countries, can anyone from US tell me if I have it correct.

You're pretty much on the mark.

 

FM radios (and headphone jacks, for that matter) are more prevalent on lower-cost phones as many of those customers either can't afford data plans to stream music or live in areas where data coverage is truly spotty. In places like North America, Europe, South Korea and Australia, people both have streaming-friendly data plans and strong coverage. Some carriers even bundle a music subscription (like Apple Music or Spotify) with pricier tiers.

 

You're largely right about competition as well. Here in North America, the phone market is largely divided between Apple and Samsung, with everyone else fighting for table scraps. In many other parts of the world, there are both more entrants (like Xiaomi, Vivo, Micromax) and fiercer competition on a basic level. When a $50 price difference between phones is extremely important, it's easier for some brands to compete than in countries where people routinely buy $800-plus phones.

 

I wouldn't say US carriers are carving out territory (the major ones all have extensive nationwide coverage) so much as just taking advantage of their size. It's hard for smaller carriers to compete when building out a nationwide network in the US would take billions of dollars and years of deployments. The biggest shifts of the past year or two were T-Mobile acquiring Sprint (it was one of the big networks, but struggling) and Dish entering the carrier game by taking Boost Mobile off of Sprint's hands.

 

 

[Levent]

Funny enough I used to listen to some Australian radios (mostly tripleJ). I never used the actual FM radio of my phone or my car though despite all my of phones having the feature to date. I do not enjoy local radio stations, local music and local news. Nowadays if I have to listen to something not music, it is one or two podcasts that I follow.

[akio123008]

52 minutes ago, flibberdipper said:

Even on my cheap and fairly shitty LG Stylo 4 I have as a spare phone, if you get a station with good signal it can sound obnoxiously good.

Bad FM radio sound is usually caused by either bad equipment or badly configured equipment. If you have a good signal and a decent radio that's properly tuned, the sound quality is just fine. Sometimes I do notice there's quite a bit of compression used, but that depends on the station, not on the technology or the equipment used.

 

1 hour ago, oali24 said:

one advantage of digital radio is that it needs less transmission power, and digital doesn't have static,

Uhm yes probably, but basically I don't like digital radio because when it comes to technology/features etc. it's worse than just using an internet connection, and yet it doesn't have the elegance and simplicity of FM. It falls right into this gap of not being technologically superior, but at the same time more complicated/expensive than FM.

 

If I want to have a radio that just works I use FM, if I need to listen to a very obscure station or perhaps a podcast, or get the most clear audio possible, I'll just use the internet. I don't see why there'd need to be another technology in between those.

[MS-DOS]

Im gonna buy a Sony radio for my mom because I dont want to have the wifi enabled all day.

https://www.sony.com/en-jo/electronics/radios/icf-306

 

Good ol analog radio that always work.

[Inelastic]

I don't use fm on my phone (I don't even have wired headphones to be able to use it), but I do in my car. I just don't feel like going through connecting my phone and then picking something to listen to when my drives are typically less than 10 minutes, especially since my radio can sometimes be a pain with Bluetooth.

[mariushm]

I do have FM radio on my Xiaomi Redmi 8 Pro  and I actually use it, when i take the bus to work, and sometimes at work (but I have it connect to the free wireless at work and stream from the radio's website because it's more consistent or I just move the headphones to my computer's headphones jack)

 

My first phone was a Motorola v2288 that had FM radio, my sister's first phone was a nokia 6030 I think  that also had FM radio, nowadays she's into mid-range Samsung phones and I don't think she uses the radio, if phone has it.