Saturday, January 10, 2009

Nokia enters the internet radio device market

- Nokia enters the internet radio device market
Nokia has been building a database of radio stations and been heavily pushing "Comes with music" on some of its newest phones. Soon there will be a new device to take advantage of this - "Nokia Home Music".
Nokia Home Music
Features internet radio (wired and wireless), an FM tuner, analogue and digital out, analogue in, USB (to play from external disk), headphone socket - and a 3.5 inch colour display.
Looks like it has a single 10W speaker and comes with a remote control - plus can be controlled via UPnP.
It was announced in early December 2008 and should ship around March 2009.

I have not seen anything about the price yet - nor anything about which audio formats it supports.
To be a success in the UK market in particular ... it will need support for BBC Listen Again. If the work done by BBC/Nokia to get BBC iPlayer support for some of the phones has been learned from in other parts of Nokia ... then this could be a serious contender.
http://europe.nokia.com/homemusic

3 comments:

Darwen Online News Blog said...

It would be great to access TV on mobile devices too as we move into Digital TV but I love accessing radio on the move, especially if it's integrated into another device (i,e, phone)

Paul Webster said...

However, this particular device is for home rather than being on the move.
On the mobile side ... BBC iPlayer gives TV and radio access (live radio - but, for now, live TV) access to internet-enabled devices, including some mobile phones.
There have been a couple of mobile phones with DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast - for Handheld devices) support - plus a Garmin GPS unit.
There are trials in various parts of the world
See http://www.dvb-h.org/services.htm

Paul Webster said...

UPDATE:
Now listed on Nokia UK site at 275GBP inc tax