Steve Litchfield has written up a defence of the Nokia N8 and covered some aspects of the phone you may not be aware of. I think every smartphone should have an FM Transmitter built in. Steve it right- once you start using FMT, you won’t stop.
“Even more unique to the N8 is having an FM transmitter (no, not an FM radio, please don’t get the two confused!) – I can’t think of many other mobile devices which can match this trick. You don’t think you need this function until you start trying it. In the car, it’s a fabulous way to stream music or podcasts from your phone to any car radio. In the home, I’ve used it several times to get Internet radio and podcasts onto a home hifi or ghetto blaster, it has saved the day several times when the appropriate leads, adapters, etc weren’t available. FM is a little old school, but sometimes old school is a great lowest common denominator for spanning the gap between items of real world equipment.”
Steve it right- once you start using FMT, you won’t stop.
Really? It’s a good use of a pre-existing technology, but I don’t think it’s as compelling as that, to be honest. If I’m going to be plugging my phone in to charge in the car, why not either just plug in the one extra cable to get audio? Alternatively, just take a sound line out of the dock connector (perhaps not on the N8?) and directly into the stereo.
In some parts of the word, FM may be a viable solution, but, driving through London, if you manage to find a frequency which is free for more than a few minutes, you are lucky, in my experience.
I can appreciate the desirability of a wireless solution, but I’m not sure that FM is quite as brilliant as this suggests.
FMT sounds like a brilliant idea, especially when your car’s stereo pre-dates USB connectivity. We have three cars, and only the one purchased last year has direct cable connection to a media player.
And I know that Australian FM broadcasting is not as conjested as Neil says that London is.
“In some parts of the word, FM may be a viable solution, but, driving through London, if you manage to find a frequency which is free for more than a few minutes, you are lucky, in my experience.”
My car doesn’t have the line out solution and to add one would be expensive. I use an FM Transmitter with my iPhone to listen to podcasts and music through my car stereo. I drive to London quite often and to many other places (Bournemouth, Birmingham, Manchester etc.) and have never experienced a single problem. It always works for me.
My car doesn’t have the line out solution and to add one would be expensive.
You need to get a better car, like mine, which has a tape player into which one can feed a tape-with-a-cable
(But, yes, fair justification, if indeed it is more complicated than just pulling the stereo out and adding a line-in cable to a connector on the back)
I have a tape player in mine (W reg man’s car by the way Neil:)) but the sound quality was dreadful through it with an adaptor.
The transmitter has been perfect. It is worth remembering that when charging a phone (N8) with a transmitter built in, there can be massive interferance so at times the seperate option works better. Also, my transmitter was £5 from HMV so you don’t need to spend a lot.
I have a tape player in mine
Ah – your car is equally old as mine, then!
Also, my transmitter was £5 from HMV so you don’t need to spend a lot.
For me, the problem was simply one of interference – but perhaps I simply needed a more powerful transmitter. Driving around London was awful, with a need to retune every 5 – 10 minutes.
sound quality was dreadful through it with an adaptor.
I still listen to Meat Loaf.
I know Neil’s car. It must be one of those Jurassic 5000s.
… tape player indeed!
“I still listen to Meat Loaf.”
Shameful…