Ok, I've got a really stupid question. Since the wifi chip on the N810 is nothing more than a controller for the transmitter and receiver, and all of the signal control and whatnot is done by the firmware (or at least that's how I understand it), how hard would it be to write a firmware that allows you to temporarily re-purpose the wifi on the N810 to be an FM radio receiver? I don't know for certain if this is possible, but I thought I'd ask just in case. If it is possible, it'd be awesome if someone were to actually write a program that could do that. Sure, you'd loose your wifi while it was being used for fm radio, but hey, that's a small price to pay to get fm radio capabilities on the N810.

(assuming of course it's even possible)

First it would take away internet "Internet Tablet" hmmmm...

and second fm and wifi are completely different you would have to change the hardware not the "firmware" or software so the answer is no.

Wifi = 2.4 GHz

"FM" (which is really modulation, not frequency) = VHF = (in US) ~100 MHz

While there is a lot of stuff done in firmware, it's not a general-purpose radio (even in the 2.4GHz band), and definitely doesn't have that kind of frequency range.

Ok, I thought that might be true. I wasn't totally sure, so I figured to at least ask, since I didn't know. Thanks for the clarification. And as for taking away the "internet" part, it wouldn't really (had it actually been possible) since you could engineer in some kind of state or firmware switching to go between the two modes. But since the FM radio part isn't possible, that's a moot point now.

you could just find someone to trade your n810 for an n800. the n800 has an FM tuner built-in.

you can buy tiny FM radios built into headphone cables, designed to add a radio to a mobile phone. these have been popular with zaurus users for the same reason they could be popular with n770 or n810 owners.

http://www.t2retail.co.uk/productDet...roduct=1200932

in fact, if you could get a combined bluetooth headset and fm radio?
http://www.mobilefun.co.uk/product/13938.htm
http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/ne...fm-radio.phtml

lol. For that price I'll just drag along my Sansa View and use it's FM receiver. The idea originally was so that I *didn't* have to bring it along, as many of the features of the View are duplicated in the N810, making my bringing it along redundant.

*shrug* I don't know. Maybe Nokia can consider bringing back the FM receiver in exchange for the extra embedded memory card. If we've got an SD slot (Ok, mini-sd, which honestly needs to go as it's less practical than standard SD or micro-sd) onboard, I fail to see where the extra embedded drive is needed. That'd free up some chipspace to add back in an FM receiver.

Now if Nokia's paying attention, I would hope they'd at least take that idea into consideration. ^_^

Actually, I would prefer that it didn't have FM. Less circuits, longer batteries (ok, maybe 5 minutes more, but less cost to manufacture, less overall price). Anyway, from where I live and work, FM reception isn't that great, and to make it worse, the FM stations here does not make any compelling reason for me to tune into FM. I've adjusted to shoutcast/podcasts for both music and news.

But, if it came with XM/Sirius I would not hesistate to upgrade from the current model that I have.

-K

Ya know Cheahk, I never thought about that. How hard would it be to put an XM/Sirius receiver into a new unit? I can't think that it'd be all that much. And if one was added, it'd be awesome if a recording feature was added. Mostly for those times when something unique, like a news broadcast, or baseball game, etc is on that I want to play back later. Plus, I wonder what the cost would be to add it.

heh, sounds like what they should do is put in a SDR:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_radio

the big problem with these tho are the different laws that apply to different nations when it comes to what frequencies are available. the last thing they want is for a unlicensed transmitter to be able to transmit on licensed bands. thats pirate radio in the making right there...

now, if we all moved to digital radio over night, that problem would largely go away imo...

but its more likely that we get a cold year in hell then see that happen...

and then their is the big media corps and their collections of hired politicians...

just watch how they go after media over internet...