This, said by a Fairphone evangelist, made me sincerely laugh.
This argument would keep being valid if you extend it to “you don’t need a smartphone”, including Fairphone.
11 Likes
…and just to add my last 2 cents, I find it a bit egocentric, if not elitarian, to look at technology needs as “what me, or my friends, or my city” needs.
Just as an example, the whole city of Rome (not exactly your typical mountain village) literally lives in symbiotic relationship with their amazingly high number of FM radios. It’s the pulsing hearth of the city, it’s were people meet and discuss. “Which FM you listen” is a typical question.
World doesn’t end at the border of your backyard.
8 Likes
Oh but I definitely agree I don’t need a smartphone 
5 Likes
We should open a new thread: “Does my FM radio need to make phone calls?” 
8 Likes
We’re going down on a bumpy road which will end up with “what’s the meaning of life” 
3 Likes
It could be good if FP3 could have a FM Radio.
6 Likes
42
And now 18 more characters…
1 Like
What I am missing from this discussion is that FM is passive: it doesn’t require a handshake. Finding out that I listen to FM radio takes a lot of technological effort and is impossible after I quit. None of the modern alternatives brought forth so far, with the exception of DAB+, allow that. Privacy is one issue there, power consumption another: two devices streaming the same URL close to each other will double energy consumption (in times of SSL, there are no efficiency gains through proxies), while two devices tuning in on the same FM station only add their own running costs.
So, I wouldn’t mind no FM if I had DAB+ — the latter suffices for me — but pretending that handshake based protocols are Superior for the purposes that FM has been covering for decades is hardly a serious proposition.
20 Likes
After my FP2 is developing issues (random reboots and not detected SIM cards) and I am annoyed by them, the only reason to not ditch my FP2 in favour of the FP3 is the missing FM radio in the FP3.
And as I want a headphone jack, an exchangeable battery and easy repairability in case of a failing connector, a non-Fairphone would be no option for me.
5 Likes
Yes an FM radio would make a lot of sense as where I reside for the last 30 years there is little or no mobile signal so I use wifi. As I’m off grid the wifi is not on 24/7 and not even 12/7.
So a radio would be excellent. As it is I use an old Nokia for radio. It seems a crazy idea not to have a radio on a supposedly eco phone 
8 Likes
I am not exactly a ShiftPhone fan or advocate, since they lack some transparency, that I see in Fairphone. But they in fact offer FM-radio in all available devices.
Open the full specifications for every phone, by clicking the link:
“Eine vollständige Auflistung aller Spezifikationen sowie Infos zum Lieferumfang findest du hier.”
E.g. the specs for the Shift 6mq (preorder) lists:
Weitere Ausstattung:
- …
- Radio: FM
Same goes for th 5me and the 6m. Specs for the mu are not yet that detailled.
2 Likes
Yes I can see that now, thanks, some nice colour cases too
I couldn’t agree more.
Digital technologies still have a long way to go before they reach the levels of quality of service available with analogue technologies. The telephone, for instance : I get fed up with radio stations interviewing guests over digital connections that are always dropping out and breaking up. Just use a phone, damn it!!
+100
Okay if I just put the line above I get a message saying my post needs to be at least 20 characters… so please ignore the rest 
Just add some invisible formatting characters like <strike></strike> (<- 17 characters, enough to bring a “No.” up to 20 characters) or the HTML space until you have enough characters .
3 Likes
It does not only not require handshaking, it is even save to listen to broadcasting services from abroad. Especially in dictatorships, this is an important issue for democracy movements.
3 Likes
Hi again.
Yeap! a radio allows individuals more freedom to choose, who to listen too, and where and when to. As you mention democracies, it’s not that such is important any more than other organisations.
The freedom to listen only happens when there’s the freedom to speak and it doesn’t matter much how or what you get to hear if your voice is silent. What I’m trying to say is that we are all silent without a radio transmitter so to speak, but now many people use social media to speak out and the radio is becoming more irrelevant to the masses.
Going off topic, yes I think a radio would have been nice, but there’s little in the way of democratically useful information available, even in democracies that survive on consumerism.
So OK no radio, maybe we can get rid of the internet and just have phone calls, that would be simple and democratic.
So sad…I was so looking forward to buying this phone…