Droid Includes FM Receiver and Transmitter

jleejordan · Dec 14, 2009

jleejordan said:
this is just my opinion, but i think it's a shame to buy a rocket ship of a phone and settle for lack luster sound quality because of fm transmitters. i tried this with my old omnia, which sounded horrible anyway, and was absolutely never happy. you can buy a kenwood deck from walmart for $68 that has a front aux input and not have to worry about it anymore .... you'll spend about $100 to buy the deck, harness, and mount (if needed). keep in mind, you sold your soul for 2 years AND paid 200 for the phone .... use the rebate wisely.

here's the link
Walmart.com: Kenwood KDC-138 In-Dash AM/FM CD Receiver with Front Input: Auto Electronics

yes , i understand this will not help on rental cars ... blah blah blah

tsaunders · Dec 14, 2009

I have a head unit that came from my old car that will allow me to connect to an aux input. I have to see if my wife will let me put the head unit into our new car -

Tymanthius · Dec 14, 2009

jleejordan said:
this is just my opinion, but i think it's a shame to buy a rocket ship of a phone and settle for lack luster sound quality because of fm transmitters. i tried this with my old omnia, which sounded horrible anyway, and was absolutely never happy. you can buy a kenwood deck from walmart for $68 that has a front aux input and not have to worry about it anymore .... you'll spend about $100 to buy the deck, harness, and mount (if needed). keep in mind, you sold your soul for 2 years AND paid 200 for the phone .... use the rebate wisely.

Not a bad idea. But my office is my work van. Newish, but no aux port, & I try to put as little personally owned eqquipment in it as possible.

So, FM would be great, but it ain't here. Any one have ideas?

Bobarazzi · Dec 14, 2009

Tymanthius said:
Not a bad idea. But my office is my work van. Newish, but no aux port, & I try to put as little personally owned eqquipment in it as possible.

So, FM would be great, but it ain't here. Any one have ideas?

They sell tiny fm transmitters in stores for like 20 bucks...plugs into headphone jack, I have one and it works great, sound quality is fine...Ill look it up.

Belkin TuneCast II FM Transmitter for MP3 Players (Black):Amazon:Electronics

messenger13 · Dec 14, 2009

First of all, let me apologize if my first post sounded as though I was dismissing anyone's disire for listening to FM radio. If you like it, have at it. It's just not my cup of tea.

bigbill25 said:
Yes. I know it will sound like crap, but if you're in a friend's car and you want to play a cool song/run Pandora/run Last.fm/Put the navigation through the speakers/use Google Listen, how are you going to do it?

Might I suggest a $6 Belkin FM Transmitter off eBay?

furat · Dec 14, 2009

need FM or not, that a personal choice , the question is why it is disabled

neumannator · Dec 14, 2009

cant wait to find out if it wil lwork or not

bigbill25 · Dec 14, 2009

messenger13 said:
Might I suggest a $6 Belkin FM Transmitter off eBay?

I have a couple of FM transmitters, but I'm never going to have them with me when I need them. I do have a line-in input on my car, so I'm fine there.

There are a lot of situations where this would be handy, and if the chipset has the ability, let's get it!

--Bill

Fadelight · Dec 14, 2009

Verizon Google Droid Phone Update

Other Exciting Features

A built-in FM radio with 12 presets.

Integrated Song ID.

A dedicated side key for easy access to favorite songs.

A 3.5 mm headset jack.

Dolby Mobile Equalizer.

A Sound Level Controller.

A Music Player that works with MP3 as well as WMA, AAC, and AAC+ files.

The Chocolate Touch is designed to offer easy access to Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and other sites.

eclipsed4utoo · Dec 14, 2009

jleejordan said:
guys, he is absolutely right. fm transmission is the best way to ruin your sound. works fine for phone calls is you don't mind it sounding like a cell from 1995, but music ????? no way. there's just no way the signal would be strong enough to sound decent. the very best fm transmitters i've heard for ipod/zune sounded like i turned the bass half way down and yanked the balls off the guitars. bluetooth doesn't even sound as good as running cables. i am a studio engineer, among other things, and i can tell a pretty significant sonic difference. if you like AM radio ... then feel free to get your hopes up.

My FM transmitter sounded perfectly fine with my IPod Touch.

Tymanthius · Dec 14, 2009

Fadelight said:
Verizon Google Droid Phone Update

That article appears to be pre-roll out, and has inaccuracies in it other than the radio stuff.

I wouldn't citeit as a trusted source.

eclipsed4utoo · Dec 14, 2009

Fadelight said:
Verizon Google Droid Phone Update

They also have this...

Limitations

Droid Cost You Extra for work with E-mail

Accessing Exchange e-mail over the new

Gunner · Dec 14, 2009

jleejordan said:
this is just my opinion, but i think it's a shame to buy a rocket ship of a phone and settle for lack luster sound quality because of fm transmitters. i tried this with my old omnia, which sounded horrible anyway, and was absolutely never happy. you can buy a kenwood deck from walmart for $68 that has a front aux input and not have to worry about it anymore .... you'll spend about $100 to buy the deck, harness, and mount (if needed). keep in mind, you sold your soul for 2 years AND paid 200 for the phone .... use the rebate wisely.

Personally, I would just like to be able to easily send the audio for Nav and phonecalls to the stereo, in any car. I could care less about the sound quality for those purposes - as long as I can understand the caller / voice prompts.

lemodular · Dec 14, 2009

with the battery already stretched just using the current hardware features, BT, WiFi, GPS, etc. I can not see having additional features enabled without a higher capacity battery. It could be that during R&D, Motorola/Verizon feel that feels it would make more economic sense to cripple the hardware slightly to balance out the specs of the battery. Maybe they were going for size here? or maybe VZW has not found away to make money off those features....yet.

virtus · Dec 14, 2009

There have been other cases of verizon disabling the FM transmitter. I believe the Touch Pro 1/2 had this hardware but verizon didn't enable it. IIRC, the FM transmitter in those phones required a certain headset to be plugged in that contained the FM antenna.

Fadelight · Dec 14, 2009

Tymanthius said:
That article appears to be pre-roll out, and has inaccuracies in it other than the radio stuff.

I wouldn't citeit as a trusted source.

I never said I trusted it. Just thought I would share it since it is on the same subject. Besides, there is usually truth in rumors, as small as it may be. The fact that rumors about it having the feature before the release, coupled with the fact that it has the transmitter, suggests that it is a feature that couldn't be finished before the release. I could go further into that and say that perhaps it is a feature we will see in later releases of Android, since it isn't a hardware limitation.

It is all speculation since it didn't come from motorola or Google...

Tymanthius · Dec 14, 2009

Fadelight said:
I never said I trusted it. Just thought I would share it since it is on the same subject. Besides, there is usually truth in rumors, as small as it may be. The fact that rumors about it having the feature before the release, coupled with the fact that it has the transmitter, suggests that it is a feature that couldn't be finished before the release. I could go further into that and say that perhaps it is a feature we will see in later releases of Android, since it isn't a hardware limitation.

It is all speculation since it didn't come from motorola or Google...

That makes sense.

shadowdude777 · Dec 14, 2009

Fadelight said:
Other Exciting Features

A built-in FM radio with 12 presets.

Integrated Song ID.

A dedicated side key for easy access to favorite songs.

A 3.5 mm headset jack.

Dolby Mobile Equalizer.

A Sound Level Controller.

A Music Player that works with MP3 as well as WMA, AAC, and AAC+ files.

The Chocolate Touch is designed to offer easy access to Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and other sites.

http://gadgetophilia.com/verizon-google-droid-phone-update/

Wut

jleejordan · Dec 14, 2009

i absolutely agree that if fm transmission is a possibility then we should be able to use it without entering the dang matrix to free it. i agree that in rental, work, and friend's vehicles it would be wonderful and impressive. i ALSO agree that for navigation, handsfree calling, and apps like those, fm transmission would be acceptable.

i just know that when it comes to music, fm tranmitters are sub-par. one guy said that his for his ipod sounded fine. with my old ipod i compared 4 different tranmitters and the very best one still didn't come close to pluggin into an aux. it might be fine for you, but to me the word "fine" is not acceptable for a $550 device that has such great sound. music wise, i have compared the droid to the samung omnia, the lg envy touch (with dolby sound), and a microsoft zune (with flat eq). i turned down the "media volume" 1 notch to compensate for the clicking/popping issue and the droid STILL smoked all those devices at full volume!!!!

i know i don't speak for everyone, but i spent good money and signed another 2 year deal for this thing. i want the absolute best this phone has to offer, and settling for fm transmitters in MY car would be a shame. keep in mind that i do sound for a living (live, studio, bands, voice overs, etc. etc.) so i might be a a lil too "elitist" about the sound thing, but to me, it's heartbreaking to hear my favorite music sounding like it's being run through a 1980's boom box. i believe an extra $100 on a new deck for my car is a worthy investment considering you can find one that also does bluetooth.

ronnieramone · Dec 15, 2009

A built-in FM transmitter would be great for me. I have no audio input jack in either of my vehicles, and the tape deck does not work in the one car so my cassette cable will not help when I drive that one. They're older cars, but at least I own them with clear titles. So I either buy a new car stereo with audio jack and/or bluetooth, or somehow get an FM transmitter unit, which then I have to find a way to power as well...

A built-in FM transmitter would be awesome. Also, I saw another website where they dismantled the Droid and they also suspected this was the same TI chip, though it remained unmarked.

mickeyx323 · Dec 15, 2009

I know every is excited about the FM transmitter, but am I the only one wondering if the wifi N will be enabled? Wouldn't it give us faster speeds when tethering with wifi or would it stay the same? And at the least it would give us better range.

bigbill25 · Dec 15, 2009

mickeyx323 said:
I know every is excited about the FM transmitter, but am I the only one wondering if the wifi N will be enabled? Wouldn't it give us faster speeds when tethering with wifi or would it stay the same? And at the least it would give us better range.

If you are using the phone for tethering, then the 3G modem is already the bottleneck, so you won't see any speed gain there. Even when just using WiFi on the phone, most people broadband connection is slower than 802.11g, so going to n doesn't add much. You are correct that it could add range, depending on how the WiFi radio is implemented.

--Bill

Ivanhead · Dec 15, 2009

Might I suggest a $6 Belkin FM Transmitter off eBay?

Perfect!
I am using one for my sirus stilletto 2 to play internet music over my sound system in house, with out have to shell out money for sirus's home kit

cwescapexlt4x4 · Dec 18, 2009

It would be nice, especially since the Flash is not ready for Android yet...

pinesal · Dec 18, 2009

Is this confirmed actual real hardware that's in the DROID?

I would be nice to wipe out my DROID anywhere a Radio exists and listen to music or what ever with it.

Droid Includes FM Receiver and Transmitter

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