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Nokia N900 Easter Egg – FM Radio!

By TheGuru on October 12th, 2009

FM radio on the Nokia N800

One of the ‘easter eggs’ hidden on the Nokia N800 was an FM radio receiver. The device shipped without any software to take advantage of the hardware, but the community came through with a solution to allow N800 owners to listen to FM radio through their device. While the Nokia N810 did not have the same little treasure, it appears as though the Nokia N900 does, and there’s already a solution to get it working!

Martin Grimme at Python and More has put together a package called n900-fmrx-enabler which enables the FM antenna when prompted, and then disables it again, to conserve battery. For right now, it’s no easy task, as the sound doesn’t immediately get output to the speakers, so Martin’s come up with a workaround. Unfortunately, this workaround sucks down the battery quite quickly.

If you’re feeling rather daring, you can install fmradio from the extras-testing repository, to give it a go. Is FM radio something you would use often, or do you think it’s rather silly, given the local storage and 3G connectivity that the N900 has?

(Image is from atmasphere.net and shows the FM Radio app on the N800)

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About TheGuru

Ricky Cadden is a long-time member of HowardForums, and started Symbian-Guru.com as a way to help the Symbian/S60 community by offering a place for enthusiasts to get information. Ricky is also the News Editor at MobileBurn.com, covering news and doing reviews on all brands of mobile handsets.You can find Ricky’s personal blog at RickyCadden.com, which covers his thoughts on technology, mobility, and various other related topics.

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  • Martin Grimme
    Thanks for coverage. However I would like to add that the work-around to talk about for getting audio output is not a workaround but the way that was recommended by Nokia's audio system engineer of the N900.
    I had a workaround earlier, which was by switching on certain mixer switches to have the audio bypass the HP filter. This worked well, but I soon got a warning from several Nokia people the next day that bypassing the HP filter can (and does) damage the speaker. Some people at Nokia had experienced speaker damage from low frequencies earlier.
    About sucking down the battery... well it's not that bad. I think you still can get several hours of FM radio out of a fully charged battery. :)
  • Its a must for me. I listen to sports radio while walking my dog and browsing the web almost all day. FM radio has content that isn't available any other way, in most cases, and its cheap. I just wish it had an AM source as well.

    Hope Nokia provides an official solution that isn't so power hungry...
  • Aldi
    With the N800, I must tell that I am using FM radio every day, especially in the morning preparing some breakfast after checking some RSS Feeds with the N800.

    That N900 has FM radio is a very welcomed addition

    Aldi
  • suy
    It's a must have for me in a phone. I really doubt I will buy a phone without FM radio now that I'm so used to the one in my N81.

    When I do my laundry, when I go on the bus, when I'm shopping, etc. (almost all the time I'm outside home and not working) I have either a music file playing, or I'm listening to a podcast or a FM radio station.

    It's a pity that the FM radio is not in provided as a factory default, but since I'm a geek, it's not a problem to install and run a community provided app. Honestly, I don't understand how iPods are such a good sellers without radio.
  • FM radio is a must-have to me as well...

    I wonder why you are so worried about its battery usage -- "several hours" only?
  • tom
    The FM receiver is always very welcome for me:
    - Preferred distribution technology for local radio content
    - Probably still needs less power than MP3 or Internet Radio
    - Backup for emergency cases (Flooding, Power loss)

    Danke Martin!
  • Martin Grimme
    Yes, I think it needs less power than playing music, since no decoding is involved. It's just piping the sound through pulseaudio.
  • Dmitry
    FM radio is a must! I mean come on, its just about the only way to get any news / sports updates without actually having to connect your device to the internet (over wifi/3g!)...
    I mean with an inbuilt fm radio receiver its a freakin gem! I always hated having to carry around a pair of headphones around for when i wanted to listen to FM radio!
    Cheers
  • eastside
    does anyone know whether the built in fm receiver can handle RDS like the N97?
  • Martin Grimme
    Yes, it can handle RDS, but there's no software for RDS yet.
  • Flanker
    Great news!!!
    This was my only concern about the device. Now everything feels just fine! I'm about to bye one.

    (Some sources indicate that the N900 does not support MMS, though. Other sources (web shops) says it does. The Nokia product specifications published on their web site are not specific on this. As a user there are alternative ways to share pictures, so that may not be an issue for me.....)
  • I can confirm that it does not officially support MMS. Apparently, Nokia is working on this and there should be a solution soon.
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