No FM radio?

[aad14]

Can someone confirm that the XZ does NOT have FM radio? If not, that's a deal-breaker for me. Can someone also please tell me why they removed it and if it will be future policy? The SD820 seems capable as both the S7 and G5 have it.
Removing features is not the way to go, Sony.

[Uliwooly]

@aad14

Did you read anywhere that it doesn't support FM radio? I'll escalate this but keep in mind that this is a user based forum.

[YoGem]

White papers state that there is no fm radio...

[Uliwooly]

@YoGem

developer.sonymobile.com/documentation/whitepapers/Xperia%20XZ_WP_1.pdf

[aad14]

These are the apps according to Sony's site: "Music, Album, Video, Movie Creator, Spotify, News, What's New, Sound Photo, AR-effect." No FM radio. It also doesn't have one according to GSMArena. 

Can someone please confirm that it will not have one for sure and that they're not planning to add it back again? I'd really like to have this phone, but otherwise I'll be looking elsewhere unfortunaletly.

[Uliwooly]

@aad14

I'll let you know when I get an official answer or maybe someone will post here.

On a side note, I understand why some people will use FM radio, I use it too, whenever I don't want to listen the music I have stored on my phone and/or don't want to use up my data through spotify, FM radio it's a great alternative but I don't see it as a deterrent for an amazing phone like the XZ. 

[aad14]

Thanks in advance Uliwooly. 

Some background info: EVERY phone has a working FM chip, even iPhones and galaxies, which don't have FM (Samsung dropped it since the S4, that made me switch to Sony) have got the chip. The problem nowadays is that manufacturers disable it, either at software level (the US snapdragon variants of the S7 received an update that enabled the FM radio again), or at hardware level: they even need to take extra effort (!) to ground the otherwise functioning (!) antenna pin (Samsung does this with their Exynos variants). I hope Sony disabled it at software level, because a grounded pin will obviously never have functioning FM again.

FM radio is a very nice addition to streaming as it does use much less battery power and also if you get bored of your own music. But then, why would you pay €700 so that they take extra effort to ground that antenna pin? Why don't they just keep the available and functioning FM chip and give the users something for their money? Judging from the comments I read, a lot of people still use it. It doesn't make sense to take extra effort to remove it, while the low- and mid-rangers do have it.

[AnnoyedUKCustom]

FM Radio is not only a replacement for streaming or downloaded music. It is also a convenient way to follow live events (e.g. sport events). It's ridiculous that the hardware supports it but the software doesn't.

I really don't understand what Sony is doing with its Android phones. This is supposed to be a flagship phone. What's the purpose of removing basic features that used to be available even in mid-range phones?

[aad14]

True, it does not make sense at all to remove an otherwise AVAILABLE feature that only needs an available app (Sony's FM app is the best btw.). I'm impatiently refreshing this site for an official answer cause I would really like to buy this phone. But if it doesn't have it, I'll be looking somewhere else because I'm not going to support them removing available and useful features. Just search for 'radio' in GSMArena's comment section and you'll see that a lot of people are skipping this phone because the lack of FM radio. And I applaud that.

[Christofer · Accepted solution]

Hi @aad14,

I can confirm that according to the information I have Xperia XZ does not support FM radio.