1. Trees's Avatar
    I'm aware that other BB10 generation devices have FM radio capability. Haven't seen any definitive details on whether or not the Classic will have FM radio capability. In the US, AT&T and Verizon are the carriers I'd consider/go with if the Classic has FM radio hardware. I know that the Z30 is available now on Verizon, and apparently FM radio capability is there.

    Note, I found several recent CB posts about this topic, but am not allowed to post the links until I hit the magical 10.
    08-23-14 11:40 AM
  2. slagman5's Avatar
    I think even the Z3 has it doesn't it? Anyway, I don't think it won't have it.

    ?Posted without the aid of AutoCorrect with my physical keyboard via CB10
    08-23-14 12:19 PM
  3. goku_vegeta's Avatar
    It's basically a Q10 with some internal upgrades. I believe we should see the FM radio in the classic but then again BlackBerry 10 devices were slated to launch with 1 GB of RAM. Bottom line is things change, and heck the PlayBook has an FM radio but it's not accessible. So let's wait and see what happens.

    Posted via CB10
    Trees and Mr4aces like this.
    08-23-14 12:33 PM
  4. slagman5's Avatar
    From the latest 10.3 info, people are saying it'll have Z30 internals, which has a FM radio, so maybe that might be a good sign.

    ?Posted without the aid of AutoCorrect with my physical keyboard via CB10
    Trees and Mr4aces like this.
    08-23-14 02:49 PM
  5. goku_vegeta's Avatar
    From the latest 10.3 info, people are saying it'll have Z30 internals, which has a FM radio, so maybe that might be a good sign.

    ?Posted without the aid of AutoCorrect with my physical keyboard via CB10
    Q10 has it too, so even if they make minor upgrades, we should still see it.

    Posted via CB10
    Mr4aces likes this.
    08-23-14 04:59 PM
  6. slagman5's Avatar
    Q10 has it too, so even if they make minor upgrades, we should still see it.

    Posted via CB10
    I know, I just stated that for possible accuracy of info purposes, not just for the FM radio part...

    ?Posted without the aid of AutoCorrect with my physical keyboard via CB10
    08-23-14 05:03 PM
  7. Bookshelf's Avatar
    No. BlackBerry Classic - Full phone specifications
    Few smart phones will/do have FM.
    There's money in selling you music & data plans.
    Trees likes this.
    08-23-14 08:28 PM
  8. Trees's Avatar
    Appreciate everyone weighing in. I'm hoping that the radio hardware/software does appear. Not a deal breaker, but would help reduce impact on data plan usage. Besides reduced data usage, the other benefit I'd hope to gain is access to channels that are not available, or are blacked out on the various streaming apps. Never fails for games that I want to listen to, fall into either of those categories.
    08-23-14 09:14 PM
  9. goku_vegeta's Avatar
    No. BlackBerry Classic - Full phone specifications
    Few smart phones will/do have FM.
    There's money in selling you music & data plans.
    There's no money in it for BlackBerry, streaming wise your carrier gets all those dollars. A lot of SoC's I believe have the hardware capabilities, but I don't think it's utilized. Other times one variant of a device may have the capable hardware and the second variant doesn't but to keep things consistent, the feature is purposely kept inactive. We'll see what happened at launch. GSM Arena has a not so great track record with specs on pre-release hardware unless that hardware is leaked so much that the launch provides little to no surprises.
    08-23-14 10:58 PM
  10. Sarek1701's Avatar
    My Z30 has FM, but I find I use the WiFi connection more to get access to my radio casts - there's a free WiFi transmitter in every workout space, but FM reception can be spotty.
    08-23-14 11:05 PM
  11. Trees's Avatar
    My Z30 has FM, but I find I use the WiFi connection more to get access to my radio casts - there's a free WiFi transmitter in every workout space, but FM reception can be spotty.
    In one of the gyms I use, FM transmitters are the only way to pick up sound from the big screen TVs. I miss out on that not having an FM capable device. Again, not a big deal, but would be a nice feature to have.

    I've thought about the Z30, but not sure at this point if I want to go for a ~ 10 month old device, and to a degree the Z30 would negate my desire for dedicated function/toolbelt keys and physical keyboard.
    08-24-14 09:28 AM
  12. idssteve's Avatar
    There are times when FM reciever would be nice. Local stations can provide pretty useful real time info in tornado country, for example. I've wished for built in FM transmitter for use with non-Bluetooth stereo.
    08-24-14 09:51 AM
  13. Zeratul57's Avatar
    II've thought about the Z30, but not sure at this point if I want to go for a ~ 10 month old device, and to a degree the Z30 would negate my desire for dedicated function/toolbelt keys and physical keyboard.
    Pffffffft The Z30 is a 2 year phone tomorrow....easy!
    08-28-14 07:50 PM
  14. Trees's Avatar
    On Verizon, it was released/orderable online on Nov 14th, 2013. Agree that it is no longer a new device.
    08-28-14 09:30 PM
  15. chalx's Avatar
    There are times when FM reciever would be nice. Local stations can provide pretty useful real time info in tornado country, for example. I've wished for built in FM transmitter for use with non-Bluetooth stereo.
    Can you use cell broadcast for this?

    Posted via CB10
    09-01-14 05:15 PM
  16. Sarek1701's Avatar
    In one of the gyms I use, FM transmitters are the only way to pick up sound from the big screen TVs. I miss out on that not having an FM capable device. Again, not a big deal, but would be a nice feature to have.

    I've thought about the Z30, but not sure at this point if I want to go for a ~ 10 month old device, and to a degree the Z30 would negate my desire for dedicated function/toolbelt keys and physical keyboard.
    FWIW, I love my Z30 for its battery life, screen, and speed. To be fair, I rarely use the FM radio because it requires a wired headphone and I usually use a wireless one thus negating the FM radio availability. YMMV depending upon your personal use.
    09-01-14 09:10 PM
  17. ahpitre's Avatar
    I just bought an unlocked Z30 straight from Blackberry. I can't find the radio anywhere? Is there an icon for the radio, an app,?
    09-03-14 07:00 PM
  18. yoe-yoe's Avatar
    The radio is in the music app. You need headphones connected to use it.
    09-03-14 09:35 PM
  19. Trees's Avatar
    I'm all for streaming if theres a way it won't count against the data plan. The #1 reason I don't use streaming is the hit on the data plan.

    Understood about the design prioritization and tradeoffs that are made during product planning and development.

    There is a use case for FM radio in many parts of the world where data plans are expensive and limited in bandwidth allowances.

    Whether BlackBerry decides that the Q20 is good platform to provide FM compared to the other devices remains to be seen.
    09-05-14 06:34 PM
  20. tonythecanuck's Avatar
    I'm aware that other BB10 generation devices have FM radio capability. Haven't seen any definitive details on whether or not the Classic will have FM radio capability. In the US, AT&T and Verizon are the carriers I'd consider/go with if the Classic has FM radio hardware. I know that the Z30 is available now on Verizon, and apparently FM radio capability is there.

    Note, I found several recent CB posts about this topic, but am not allowed to post the links until I hit the magical 10.
    My Z30 has an FM tuner.

    Posted using my BlackBerry Z30.
    09-05-14 06:36 PM
  21. Trees's Avatar
    My Z30 has an FM tuner.

    Posted using my BlackBerry Z30.
    Yes, the Z30 was on my consideration list for this fall, but unfortunately looks like its gone from Verizon.

    I'm actually not in a rush to make a change, just starting to research and evaluate my options given the recently launched and upcoming devices for this fall from Apple, BlackBerry, and Samsung.

    Having spent years with the Tour (9630), Storm 1, Storm 2, and Bold (9930); I'm comfortable going back to a BB device with a physical keyboard - if it has the tool belt and decent specs that will last for a few years. I think email and messaging capabilities will be great from what I've read about BB10.

    FM radio would be a bonus and a compelling differentiator in my view.
    Last edited by Dog5000; 09-06-14 at 09:17 AM.
    09-05-14 06:50 PM
  22. slagman5's Avatar
    I hope they drop FM radio. If they want to go the route of streaming, they should promote Spotify or similar service. Would be a great idea to see BBRY move into music and offer streaming from their cloud into the handset, even better if they find a way to do it w/out hitting your data plan (much like bbm and email, back in the day, didn't hit your data plan). Streaming is the future of mobile tech as we put more high-res videos and high-quality FLAC audio content on phones, storage isn't keeping up, and even if it did there's added weight and size dimensions to be dealt with.

    They should drop FM radio. Focus on developing tools that are valuable to a broad set of users. Save the space and weight inside the device from the FM antenna. Focus on building what matters - a great music app, a great video player, and ways (via cloud) to stream content to our devices without destroying our mobile phone bill. That's what Amazon attempted (and didn't) do with it's newest phone, when they didn't make Amazon streaming free and unincluded in the data portion of your bill. The street was disappointed with that, and for apple to focus on cramming an FM radio in there would add very little value and take engineers eyes off of more important tasks like updating OS 10, making a better brower, making a better media player, computer to phone sync features, wireless syncing, NFC, wireless charging, etc etc. In the list of things a company should be worried about, FM radio is so low it shouldn't be included. Users who JUST MUST have FM radio can already stream it for free off the websites of (most) major radio stations.
    Um, you can add more features without losing any. How can it possibly be a bad thing to have another option? Something about your way of thinking makes no sense to me...

    ?Posted without the aid of AutoCorrect with my physical keyboard via CB10
    09-05-14 09:29 PM
  23. z10Jobe's Avatar
    I hope they drop FM radio. If they want to go the route of streaming, they should promote Spotify or similar service. Would be a great idea to see BBRY move into music and offer streaming from their cloud into the handset, even better if they find a way to do it w/out hitting your data plan (much like bbm and email, back in the day, didn't hit your data plan). Streaming is the future of mobile tech as we put more high-res videos and high-quality FLAC audio content on phones, storage isn't keeping up, and even if it did there's added weight and size dimensions to be dealt with.

    They should drop FM radio. Focus on developing tools that are valuable to a broad set of users. Save the space and weight inside the device from the FM antenna. Focus on building what matters - a great music app, a great video player, and ways (via cloud) to stream content to our devices without destroying our mobile phone bill. That's what Amazon attempted (and didn't) do with it's newest phone, when they didn't make Amazon streaming free and unincluded in the data portion of your bill. The street was disappointed with that, and for apple to focus on cramming an FM radio in there would add very little value and take engineers eyes off of more important tasks like updating OS 10, making a better brower, making a better media player, computer to phone sync features, wireless syncing, NFC, wireless charging, etc etc. In the list of things a company should be worried about, FM radio is so low it shouldn't be included. Users who JUST MUST have FM radio can already stream it for free off the websites of (most) major radio stations.
    I assume that you meant Blackberry and not Apple.

    Regardless, I really like the FM radio on my BB Q5. Works great and doesn't use data and needs no network connection. In other words.... free. I don't see how dropping a free option is a good thing. One more attribute BB has that some other manufacturers do not.

    BTW, the antennae is your headphones so it adds no weight to the device.
    09-05-14 09:50 PM
  24. ZeroBarrier's Avatar
    Yes thanks, I meant Blackberry.

    So if antenna is in your headphones can you not use the radio in your Q5 with non-blackberry branded headphones, like Beats or Sony?
    The antenna isn't in the headphones, rather the headphones act as the antenna; so all headphones will work correctly.

    Posted via CB10
    09-05-14 10:43 PM
  25. slagman5's Avatar
    I'm not speaking to a trade off in features. FM radio, to me, shouldn't be about adding features just because 5% of users think it's "cool" or "will make their data usage lower". The question isn't one of trading off one feature for another, it's about making a device that has a specific goal in mind (a high end productivity device for business oriented users, I hope) and only building features that promote that goal.

    Sure an FM radio is cool. But if you're sitting in a strategy meeting at BBRY and can only make the phone do 100 things, then you list what's important, rank all the ideas, and do what's most important in the top 100. My sole point is that FM radio isn't in the top 500 most important things I can think of that blackberry could be building into this phone. Cool? Yes. Worth devoting time and resources away from something else, like improving memory allocation, upgrading pixel density in the display, upgrading the backlight, they build quality, the featureset of bbm, running android apps more smoothly in qnx, etc are - to me - all more important.
    WTF are you rambling on about? Current BB10 phones ALREADY HAVE FM TUNERS IN THEM! It's not about "adding cool" features to anything, you're the one talking about simply removing it because you don't use it. It's already there, removing it is actually doing more work than leaving it...

    ?Posted without the aid of AutoCorrect with my physical keyboard via CB10
    goku_vegeta likes this.
    09-05-14 11:29 PM
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