Transmission1

Does such a thing exist? Something where the signal isn't overwhelmed by noise as soon as the backlight comes on? I've got an HTC Desire and the radio is cack. Bluetooth has to be on to use the radio so battery life suffers. No RDS, or at least, it's such a crap receiver that it never manages to decode RDS anyway. Yes, I've tried every pair of headphones I can get my hands on. Even with line of sight to the local FM relay, it only just manages to stay on stereo and you never get full quieting.

To be honest, I have never really had a phone with a good, reliable/stable FM radio yet. Unfortunately I think they will always be a bit of an average quality extra feature.
I tended to use the streaming radio applications, the sound quality was average at best (128kbs on average) but they tended not to lose the signal as much.
I have the "all you can eat" data package though, so I am not worried about data usage.

Do they still use the earphones as the antenna like the older phones and portable radios did?

I would probably stream via the internet as I have unlimited data.

Yes. The headphone cable still acts as the antenna, or at least it still does on my aging Galaxy S2

The only phone I have had to date that does not need the earphones as an antenna is the basic Vodafone 340!

Sony-Ericsson K750i: had an excellent receiver, so I'm sure it can be done.

troffasky wrote: Something where the signal isn't overwhelmed by noise as soon as the backlight comes on? I've got an HTC Desire and the radio is cack. Bluetooth has to be on to use the radio so battery life suffers.

If you have to switch Bluetooth on to use the FM Radio app theres something seriously wrong with your phone.

I have the HTC Desire the One X and the One and with everyone of them I don't need to switch Bluetooth on, neither do they suffer with the backlight issue.

I've had an Acer Liquid E2 V370 for about 4 months now and the FM receiver is
excellent. No RDS but I appreciate it having a decent FM rx that just works.

The phone doesn't need headphones with the receiver chip in line.
The actual FM RX is in the phone and any old headphones plugged in will work.

73 de WNP

i purchased an huawei smartphone recently got a good discount and not long ago gave the fm radio a test and managed to get quite a few stations.

mike

I've been a Nokia Communicator series user since day one, but alas Nokia decided
to royally dump all it's fans and become nothing more than a company that can't
even trade for a few pence now on the stock market.

So once my Nokia E90 needed replacing I was dreading the thought of a Windows
or Android device.

The problems with most cell phones these days is the complete lack of choice !

1)Windows or Android mostly.
2)Lacking in office software.
3)User has to perform surgery just to remove a battery pack.
4)Crap GPS or mapping.
5)Expensive considering all the above faults.
6)Having been an early adopter of Android tablets I witness the complete cock up
they made of the app store and update process.
7)At the time most expensive phones even lacked a GPS, let alone offline mapping.

Then I discovered the Acer Liquid E2.

a) A measly £180 unlocked.
b) Dual SIM
c) Quad band
d) Out the box office software for spreadsheets etc.
e) Decent GPS, assisted GPS, offline mapping,
f) A decent FM radio that aint deaf.
g) User removeable battery.
h) Runs Android like poop off a shovel, this phone is no slug !
i) Decent camera

Despite a few reviews that slagged it off, I am totally the opposite.

I've now found a phone to replace my beloved Nokia Communicator series phones
that meets my demanding spec.

73 de WNP

JM62 wrote:If you have to switch Bluetooth on to use the FM Radio app theres something seriously wrong with your phone.

They went to quite a lot of effort to do it wrong then, including coding the FM app so that it complains about bluetooth being off.

I have been using HTC phones for the last 4 years from the desire then the oneX and just got the M8 the radio on all all off them worked adequately using the ear phone's that came with them. never had to turn on the blue tooth or had any issues with noise when the backlight was on

troffasky wrote:Does such a thing exist? Something where the signal isn't overwhelmed by noise as soon as the backlight comes on? I've got an HTC Desire and the radio is cack. Bluetooth has to be on to use the radio so battery life suffers. No RDS, or at least, it's such a crap receiver that it never manages to decode RDS anyway. Yes, I've tried every pair of headphones I can get my hands on. Even with line of sight to the local FM relay, it only just manages to stay on stereo and you never get full quieting.

Samsung Galaxy S2 and S3 had a decent fm radio, then they removed it from the S4?
Now use my little Sansa Fuse for Radio 4 on the move

My phone doesn't even have an FM receiver. Its a Samsung Galaxy S5 and Samsung themselves said that FM radio is an unnecessary feature as people stream audio with apps like Tune in radio and Spotify.

Not really Android, but...Blackberry Q10 = awful. No mono mode and has some bizarre DSP you can't turn off that makes everything awful.

Currently using a Xiaomi Mi A1. Pretty decent, but no RDS.