Grandpa used to listen to AM radio, and you probably grew up with FM radio, but have you heard of DAB? It’s the newest technology to bring you sweet new music when you’re tired of the thousands of tracks on your iPhone or the millions of track that come with a premium Spotify subscription and the accompanying mobile application. DAB promises higher audio quality, less interference, and you also get additional data such as the name of the track playing. Instead of building DAB into each and every mobile handset Nokia makes, which would be costly and a bit pointless since not all countries broadcast DAB radio, the Finnish firm has instead decided to release an accessory that utilizes the microUSB port on their latest Symbian^3 devices. Styled in a similar fashion as the DVB-H accessory released a few weeks ago, the “DAB digital radio headset” as it’s called, way to go marketing people, measures 55 x 23 x 14.5 mm and weighs 30.5 grams. It comes with a pair of snazzy, yet probably horrible, headphones, but don’t fret, thanks to the use of a standard 3.5 mm headphone jack you can use whatever cans you prefer.
There’s no price tag, but we do know that it’s coming out this quarter in the UK and in other countries shortly after. Should you be interested in finding out if there’s digital radio in your country, check out this Wikipedia page. Sad to report that the United States and Finland don’t support the standard, but the UK does, and radio is huge over there. There are several advantages to using this versus something like a streaming radio client or podcatcher. The big one is battery, and then there’s also the savings you get in storage space. No more having to download those pesky files.
Update: It’s available on Nokia’s UK shop for 45 British pounds or roughly $70. You really have got to love radio to buy this thing.
[Via: All About Symbian]