Spotify or is there something else?

[stayathomegardener]

As above.

Spotify is well known albeit a mystery to me but is there another provider for collecting music to your phone?

Actually iTunes...

What should I choose?

There are plenty of alternatives to Spotify out there eg Apple Music, Amazon, Google, YouTube, Deezer, Tidal, Quboz etc

You need to consider the availability of music on offer as some streaming services offer much bigger databases, quality of music provided (do you want high quality (CD or higher music reproduction) or are you happy with lower quality eg mp3 at 256kb - much depends whether you are listening casually on the run or whilst engaged in other activity or whether you are listening critically to the music.

Cost is clearly a big factor here - so ad free or not, ability to download to enable listening offline, family sharing etc.

I use Deezer myself and am very happy with their offering in terms of sound quality, size of music library, the way the app is laid out and works, and cost but most providers allow you a trial-free period so I suggest you have a look around and see what suits you best as most providers are very similar in terms of pricing.

Thanks @nutgrabber.

I'm not really that into music but I think poor sound quality will annoy me as CD's were my last foray so will compare to that.

Don't particularly want to pay much but suspect I wouldn't use it if ads got in the way.

Deezer trial maybe sounds like the way forward then.

Most of them offer a free trial, try out a few, check out the app, range of music and quality and see what works for you.

Definitely try one or two different music streaming services out.you usually listen on a phone in a noisy environment when commuting for example, then there is no point paying for higher quality streaming as you simply will not benefit.

Try a and see what you prefer based on your own personal circumstances. You may even find that Spotify works best for you after all! 🙂

Normal Spotify drives me to distraction because on the free one you have to listen on shuffle, you can’t play one song you fancy and there’s loads of adverts. You also can’t listen unless you’ve got WiFi. I had free Spotify premium for a bit with my phone contract so I was spoiled!

We have Amazon music with an Alexa. It’s great - you can play albums, create playlists, it’ll shuffle songs by artists. The Alexa is expensive but the sound quality is fantastic.

I like Google play. You can pay a subscription fee (a few £s a month) which allows you to stream music, or save it for offline listening. If you purchase music and add it to your library it's very easy to access that library from any device, desktop computer etc, and should you change phones/operating system you won't lose your previous purchases as it works across all operating systems (unlike iTunes) so you'll be able to easily install your existing library on a new phone

I've used Deezer for years. Really good.

I use free spotify for my walk into work (so about 1hr a day).

I spent a bit of time favouriting a hundred odd tracks by searching for artists I like, genres and suggestions the app made based on these, and I mostly listen to this on shuffle.

I'm happy with just taking what I get as ultimately it's all stuff I like - bit like my own radio station.

My only gripe is that I feel like the ads trying to persuade me to upgrade to Spotify premium have got more frequent and longer the longer I use it. Still only once or twice in the course of a journey though.

It uses a lot less data than I thought it would.

I pay for Spotify. It's my luxury. My children have used it too for the odd thing. I like to discover new artists and if I really love the album, I'll buy the physical version.

I pay the equivalent of £9.99 per month to avoid all the adds and think it is good value when you consider you have access to a huge music library of 30 million tracks.

It's also very convenient and it allows me the ability to download music which is I can play without worrying about a connection.

I still buy physical music content and use streaming to find new music and bands. It's a try before you buy approach as well to ensure I only buy music I ultimately enjoy.