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Spotify on Symbian is a landmark release for the music streaming colossus. With Sky Songs and Napster both grabbing the headlines lately, the Swedish music mavens have been out of the limelight. But its new Nokia-friendly app has at last landed. The question is, is it worth nabbing a Spotify Premium account for? And can it better the excellent Spotify iPhone app? Read our Spotify on Symbian review now and we’ll give you our definitive verdict.
In many ways, Spotify on Symbian is more important than its iPhone and Android cousins. Sure, Apple giving the thumbs up to its iTunes streaming rival was a a big deal, but this, along with 3’s Spotify deals, bring easy, breezy music access to the masses.
See, while Spotify on Symbian works perfectly well with the classy N-series or business-friendly E-series Nokias, as well as smarties from Samsung and Sony Ericsson, it also plays nice with a string of dumbphones, including the XpressMusic 5800 and 5230, of which more later.
Getting and installing the Spotify on Symbian app couldn’t be easier. Check your blower will play nice on the Spotify Symbian info page, head to m.spotify.com on your phone and hit download. It’ll then sit pretty in your Applications folder. We’ll admit to some teething issues, with the Nokia N85 we tested it on refusing to believe it was compatible at first and then promptly crashing once it was on board. That said, once we’d reset the phone, and entered our username and password, we were quickly rooting through our playlists.
Spotify on Symbian: Everything you need to know
It took us around 30 seconds to connect over 3G. That compares to around 15 seconds for our iPod touch to do the same, although admittedly that was over a Wi-Fi connection. In all, it means Spotify on Symbian is quick to load. And the good times don’t end there.
See, Spotify on Symbian sees off the Spotify iPhone app in more than one key area. You can sync offline playlists over 3G, which Apple’s blower can’t do. It means you don’t have to wait at home for your Wi-Fi to do its thing before you can dash out into a connection-free zone and have your tunes with you. It’s a small detail, but one which really sets Spotify on Symbian apart.
Likewise, Spotify on Symbian can work in the background. When you hit exit you’ll be asked if you want to quit or just minimise. We did the latter and found our phone suffered no laggy effects from running the music mad app while we surfed and texted our hands off. It makes a huge difference and really sets it apart from the iPhone effort.
We did have a couple of minor issues with Spotify on Symbian, however. We nabbed the new Them Crooked Vultures LP, but found that album artwork took about a minute to show up. More infuriatingly, tunes cut out occasionally, even when using HSDPA. It was a rarity, but losing Josh Homme’s infectious guitar lines, even for just a second, was darned annoying. It’s a price you pay for listening over a data connection true, but means using offline mode is all the more important. And be aware it’ll chew through your battery quicker than Joey Chestnut at a hotdog eating contest.
That said, Spotify on Symbian does offer the best all round experience of any Spotify app. It’s somewhat let down by laggy playback at times, and searching for tracks using the numeric keypad isn’t nearly as intuitive as on the QWERTY touchscreens of the iPhone or HTC Hero. But, it points to a new direction for Symbian in general and Nokia in particular. With this, Nokia Comes With Music must surely be on its last legs. Spotify on Symbian costs around the same, comes on the Comes With Music filled XpressMusic 5320 and 5800, your tunes aren’t shackled to one phone and PC and you can tap into the app on any supported phone.
If you’ve got a Nokia blower and have been umming and aahing over getting Spotify Premium, now’s the time to drop your wad. It’ll give you a massive array of access and what’s more, you can tell your iPhone-packing pals that your app’s better than theres.
“it also plays nice with a string of dumbphones, including the XpressMusic 5800 and 5230″ are you kidding me?
is that an insult towards Nokia? I guess people don’t think much of s60 nowadays 
Not an insult at all anonymous. But they’re not the top notch killers the E-series and N-series are. I’d say it’s even better to see Spotify on them rather than the top end ones. Shows it’s curtains for CWM!
CWM still has it’s place. The Spotify offering is £120 a year, whereas the CWM solution is around £120 granted, but, and it’s a big ‘but’, you get a new phone bundled with it.
True, but you can’t take those tunes with you at the end. The fact you can log in on any phone that supports Spotify makes it the winner for me. I’d be amazed if CWM isn’t killed off in the New Year, especially after those user figures leaked out over the summer.
You can take the tunes with you after the initial CWM term expires. They can be played on the PC and the original phone as long as you like. Granted that these cannot be transferred to the new phone if you resubscribe, but if that is the case then you can redownload whatever you like on the new subscription anyway. Either way, you get an upgraded handset and access to the same library you had before.
There’s place for both. Nokia does a good job of getting the cost of some CWM phones down so it feels reasonable to pay that much up front anyway. If that’s not enough for you, or you like to be a bit more spontaneous, there’s always Spotify as well. If this encourages Nokia to somehow make CWM DRM free, then even better.
I hear you on the phone and it’s definitely a plus getting a new handset. I just can’t abide DRM on anything and don’t understand why Nokia persists with it. I reckon if they got rid they’d get stacks more customers. The issues arise then with how much you download for £120. Do you limit it? I think streaming would be a better bet for them.
It’s not just Nokia that is persisting with DRM, the likes of iTunes and others still have no other soluiton to it. But, I reckon, as you do, that if they do go DRM free, then the customer base will rise considerably. Let’s just hope that DRM free is going to come sooner rather than later.
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