Sony Ericsson Release The Latest Phone Technology: AM Radio
It’s a situation I’m sure we’ve all been in: You’re visiting your Nanna and Pop and you pull out your fancy new phone with all the bells and whistles to show them. But where you expect unbridled enthusiasm at your MP3-playing, 5-megapixel photo taking, internet browsing masterpiece of engineering, you instead got looks of confusion.
“Oh, that all sounds like too much for silly old me” they say to you. “All I need is a phone that can make calls and lets me listen to Ray Hadley on 2GB. He makes me feel all warm and tingly inside”. And after you recover from the shock that it was your Pop who expressed his affectations for the AM radio DJ, you realise that there aren’t a great number of AM-radio capable handsets in the world. You know, for the old people who still listen to AM. Thankfully, Sony Ericsson are addressing the problem with their R306 mobile phone.
On top of AM radio, you get… wait for it… FM radio, making this one of the greatest radio phones ever (although there isn’t any internet radio or DAB+ functionality). You also get a 1.3MP camera for photos of your Nanna’s cats, stereo loudspeakers so you can share your love for Ray Hadley with the world, plus standard phone features like MMS, MP3 ringtones and Bluetooth.
The R306 is available now. There’s no word on price in the press release, but given its obvious target demographic, I wouldn’t think it would be too expensive.
- Next Post: NEC Joining The Netbook Frenzy »
- « Previous Post: Cafero Entertainment Bot Keeps Day Job as Bionic Barista
Comments
As silly as this sounds this is a feature I want and I like to regard myself as not quite yet being in the “old fart” crowd. If anyone in Aus wants decent cricket coverage then ABC 720 AM is the only way to go. I had to hunt down an AM pocket radio just for this purpose for following while at the beach or park or whatever. I don’t know why it has taken this long.
I agree –
I agree – I am not an oldie but I love my sport and have always wanted to listen to 3AW, 1116SEN and the ABC for my footy and cricket. I don’t think it’s a small demographic at all Nick.
@Red T-Rex and @Joe – Don’t take the post too literally guys…
I agree completely. I’d love to be able to listen to the AFL matches on the local AM stations, and have purchased a small AM radio for this. I think you might be surprised Nick at how many people would welcome this functionality.
Yep add me to the list of those interested. I’m a 26 year old, and whilst i like the FM radio stations, if you want your sport fix in Melbourne you need an AM radio. This or a small mp3 digital am/fm player really would sell quite well i think. I know digital radio is supposed to be coming, and will supposidly make this obsolete, but it’s not here yet as a real alternative and probably won’t be mainstream for quite some time.
Agreed – I’ve had to buy a portable am radio so I can listen to the cricket too. I’m glad someone is finally including this feature in their phones, it’ll save me carrying around two devices.
Here you go:
http://www.telstra.com.au/telstraprepaidplus/handsets/sony_r306.cfm
@Nick – I get the tongue in cheek thing. I’m just wondering why it has taken this long. Obviously I’m not the only one here that carries a second device during the appropriate sport season. Has no-one else done any market research on this before? Sounds like at least Sony have someone on board who knows what they are doing (although it has taken a hell of a long time).
About time! how about some more manufacturers give this a go. if they advertised the factin their ads there would be a big waiting list to get one.
And I need it for abc news
Fantastic !! I have been waiting & searching for a quality phone with AM radio built in for a long time. I am in my late 30’s and enjoy listening to the races ( horse ) I could imagine plenty of avid horse racing fans being interested in this. ( especially the ones that don’t want to pay the high monthly costs to have SKY broadcast on the mobile ) Thankyou