TuneIn Radio on WP7/Lumia 800

I've been testing the TuneIn Radio app a bit on WP7 Nokia Lumia 800. I found this app very interesting since it lists a vast amount of radio stations around the world in a neat and user-friendly interface. Most importantly, it also finds the local radio stations. I don't listen to radio nor music that much, but since I didn't have a radio before, it's great to finally have a device with this feature as well =)

At first I thought that only the pre-installed Zune app supports the built-in FM radio of Lumia 800, but luckily TuneIn Radio also supports it since it's interface is more simpler and pleasant to use. It's quite cool that TuneIn Radio can either use the FM radio or a web stream, even on small Finnish local stations, which impressed me for sure. On local stations both  options seem to work fine, but on some national stations TuneIn Radio seems to have difficulties to tune the FM radio and rather relies on the web stream (guess the headphones aren't that good of an antenna).

You can browse through available channels by geographical location, genres or language. You can also find podcasts with TuneIn Radio. It's easy to add your favorite channels to presets or pin them to start screen for quick access later on. The app keeps the music playing smoothly under lock screen and even while playing games, but I did have some problems trying to switch radio stations, causing the app to quit instead.

Half an hour of listening using the FM tuner and phone speakers drained about 4% of the battery charge. Using the web stream and speakers actually spent a little less, which surprised me. Anyway, the results are from my non-scientifically-proof tests, so you shouldn't take those numbers too seriously.

TuneIn Radio is featured in the Nokia Collection (not pre-installed on the phone) in Windows Phone Marketplace but it can also be found elsewhere in the Marketplace. Not sure what's the difference is between those two apps, but I assume the one found in Nokia Colletion is optimized for the Lumia phones.