LG Stylus 2 is the first phone to support DAB+ radio

The LG Stylus 2 was originally announced ahead of this year’s MWC but the handset seems to have picked up a new feature since then, at least in European and Australian markets. The smartphone is the first to include DAB+ radio support in these regions, as a data friendly alternative to streaming audio from the web.

This version of the LG Stylus 2 features a dedicated DAB+ chipset and an additional app that allows customers to enjoy digital radio broadcasts out of the box. The app offers station recommendations and has an improved discovery engine. DAB and DAB+ radio signals are common in Europe and can also be found in Australia. Other regions have adopted different standards, such as HD Radio in the US, so this particular model won’t go on sale in other countries.

DAB+ offers some advantages over regular DAB and its MPEG2 encoding. It makes use of aacPlus, which offers increased audio quality at small bit-rates. The two standards also make use of the same hardware, so the LG Stylus 2 will work with both formats wherever they are available.

The DAB+ version of the LG Stylus 2 otherwise retains identical hardware to that which was announced back in February. There’s still a 5.7-inch 720p display, a 1.2 GHz quad-core processor, 1.5GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel rear camera, 8 megapixel front camera, a 3,000mAh battery, and it comes complete with a stylus.

Consumers in Australia, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom will be the first to receive the LG Stylus 2 with DAB+ radio support.