This cheapy smartphone I got from amazon I decided to keep has an FM radio in it.
Thought to see how good this is and I was surprised. This isn't a bad receiver reception wise. Very good in fact with excellent selectivity, a 4 ft length of audio cable as the antenna. I can select speaker and it plays through the smartphone speaker not headphones. If all smartphones come with FM and they are this good with reception I'm thinking why do I have to give out radios? The smartphone is a radio also and everyone has one. I'm sure if my no name cheapy has FM this good, a brand name expensive one should have one.
Has manual tuning and search. One setting finds all the stations receivable in a decent signal strength and stores so it's like presets also. I guess the expensive brand names have better audio.
You'd think that all smartphones would have FM radios, wouldn't you?
Well, the carriers, through which most cell phones are purchased, have other ideas. They don't want you listening to FM free over-the-air. They want you to pay for lots and lots of data and stream.
So no, most brand name expensive cellphones don't have radios. The carriers have the manufacturers disable them (if they had them in the first place). Ironically, it's usually only the cheaper, unlocked phones that you don't purchase through a carrier that have them.
Here's an interesting story. I had a Samsung S10 phone I purchased through Freedom Mobile here in Canada, and it did have a radio (a mistake, I believe). Samsung (and Freedom) then came up with a forced update to the phone which disabled the radio!? I vowed there and then never to purchase another cell phone in that manner again.
My current cell phone, which I purchased recently, is a flip phone imported from Japan. It runs Android 13, has 64GB ROM, 4GB RAM, can support a micro sd card up to 2TB, and is fast. The downside is a small screen because of the flip design, but that's what I want (to limit the amount of unnecessary screen time on it, and the small screen also extends the battery life). It has a nice radio on it.
As far as I remember our phones down here have had FM radios built in, even when you got one with a plan with the telcos. My last dumb phone was used more as a radio than a cell phone. My Samsung smart phone has a radio in it but I never use it. Now that I have hearing aids I just use my internet stream and use the bluetooth to my hearing aids. The FM radio will not bluetooth to the hearing aids even with a set of headphones plugged in, I searched for an app to do it but never found one. Talking about phones we just had a test of our EAS service which is sent to cell phones. I have an old phone I keep by my bed to stream music into my sound system and tinnitus masking sounds when I sleep. That got the alert even though it does not have a sim card in it. It can call our emergency system which is 111 even without the sim as well.
Yes, it depends on country and carrier(s). In North America, they've conspired to keep FM radios out of phones, at least those that the carriers sell. Elsewhere, they may or may not be available.
It's all about greed.