LG's Stylus 2 is the first phone to support DAB+ radio
It won't hit the US, but it will go on sale in Europe and Australia.
Despite the increase in streaming, smartphone makers have still seen it fit to include FM radio support in their devices, especially in emerging markets. The main reasons for this are that it saves data and it doesn't eat into battery life nearly as much as listening to something over the internet. With more consumers embracing digital, LG has seen it fit to outfit the Stylus 2, a phone it first unveiled back in February, with something not seen before in modern mobile devices: DAB+ radio support.
DAB+ isn't a new standard, but uptake varies across the world. In the US, broadcasters have adopted the HD Radio standard, while DAB and DAB+ has been embraced across Europe. That explains why LG won't launch the Stylus 2 with DAB+ support in North America and is focusing on Australia, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway and the UK.
The phone features a big 5.7-inch 1280 x 720 display, quad-core 1.2 GHz processor, 1.5GB of RAM, 13-megapixel camera and a 3,000mAh battery. With its pointer, the Stylus 2 is a Galaxy Note competitor and comes with smart features to make the most of it. Pen Pop, for example, is a neat shortcut menu that houses Pop Memo and Pop Scanner apps, while Pen Keeper alerts you if it believes you've walked off with your phone but left the stylus behind.
While DAB encodes broadcasts in MPEG2 (or MP2), DAB+ uses aacPlus, which offers increased quality at small bitrates. The standards use the same transmitters, making it easy for companies to support both (and eventually phase DAB out). That means more high-quality broadcasts, but it will also allow stations to include radio playback alongside other online services inside their own apps.
