Music Unlimited (2012)

I have decided to give Sony's Music and Video Unlimited a bash. 

I want to state that I have had very little experience with anything like this. I have had some very stressful experiences with Itunes and Spotfy in the past but that's about it. 

Sony have been kind enough to give me a free trail on their premium service for a month or so, then a free trial on the basic package. From what I understand the premium account is £9.99 a month and gives me unlimited access to music on their millions of tracks. This basically gets rid of a lot of adverts on the service. If you have a PSN account you will occasionally get offers for Music Unlimited for £60 a year, which works out at half price at £5 per month which is one of the most competitive prices of any music streaming service around.

I was a little confused to see that Sony require my card details for a free trail. Later I find out that they automatically jump over to the pay monthly service and start charging you once your free trail has ended. I have also learned from A LOT of online complaining that they do not warn you that they are going to start charging after your trail is over. I have yet to find out the truth to this but if it is then I am pretty disgusted with Sony. I have taken the liberty of writing down the date it expires so this doesn't happen. This isn't unheard of mind, this is something Netflix and Love Film do also. Very nasty if true.

As we all know Sony are a major player when it comes to music and cinema so they will be easily able to complete with Apple on this front. I was very impressed with their selection, I have even found some of my terrible noisy music which nobody has ever heard of on here from Atari Teenage Riot to Bong Ra. Thats pretty impressive as they come from two spectrum of music at other sides of the stratosphere. Sony certainly do get some brownie points there. Their cinema selection seems decent too.  Well done guys.

I am also impressed with the fact that Music Unlimited has upgraded its entire collection to full CD quality (320kb I believe). Some other services have done this too, though only with a certain percent of their catalogue. So again, bravo Sony as most other rivals have not done this. I have heard so many people mention that audio quality was a big issue for them not getting involved with music streaming, so this is key to Music Unlimited and its success.

As for the experience goes the software is quite slow. When i scroll up and down it lags. I like to think we are past that kind of rubbish now days. The user interface is also dull and could do with some modernization. I am finding it crashing several times a day, especially if I ask it to do too much at once. This is the main issue which is dragging down the experience for me.  Sorry guys but that is a massive fail from me.

I am happy with this music service. It gives me unlimited access to all their music. This competes with the pirating which is so rife online but makes it much easier to share with friends and other consoles like the Playstation 3. For a tenner a month this is something I really could see using. All depending on usability. If your strapped for cash you can even get the basic service for £3.99 with adverts.

I am not too sure how the adverts are going to be once my premium account gets downgraded. If its like YouTube and I have to sit through 5 seconds of advert to listen to the next song then I will quite simply stop using this service. I like to think this is the kind of software I can use at parties when I plug my phone in to some speakers like they probably show on the adverts on TV. It will hardly be as fun as they portray if we are having to sit there listening to Martin Clunes talking to the Churchill dog between each track. 

Streaming music seems to be fast with little issues. I have mediocre broadband and there was no buffering and very little waiting for the next screen to come up. If Sony could just make the scrolling experience smoother and modernised the look and feel of the software then we could be on to a winner. 

more to follow! 

****UPDATE****

Well I have just tried to sync my account to the PS3 by downloading the app on the PSstore. My console doesn't give me a "sign in" option, so I accidentally made another separate account.  I had to spend about 20 mins finding the option to cancel the automatic subscription to stop Sony charging me when my free trial ends. Its unnecessarily complicated and a pain in the arse to use. I have just spent another 15 mins looking up how to cancel my automatic subscription to my Xperia P too. I think Sony must have made this a real pain to cancel on purpose. I had to actually go in to "Help" and find out how to do it. Which from what I can tell, can only be done on a PC and not the Android App.

Anything that requires that kind of effort needs to be rethought out.

I am going to try this again when I can be bothered but it makes me wonder if other people could be...

Simon Tompkins - A lazy consumer who wants a simple life. 

***update****

I am trying to make a simple play list but the songs I add aren't always being added. I have to do it several times before they come up. This is really annoying as you have to go back quite a few pages to check it has gone on. Sloppy Sony. Not only that but I have noticed a lot of spelling mistakes on some of the track names. I am not sure how this all works but still pretty basic. Not happy. 

On the plus side I am very happy with your selection of music. On further searching I have found nearly all my favourite bands and DJ's. Not only that but the selection is VERY good too.  Nice work.

If Sony can sort out Music Unlimited's kinks and perhaps make it easier to use then this could be something special.