Google Play Music vs Spotify

DublinBeaker · 18-11-2014 10:47AM #1

Does anybody know the main differences on the above.

I have an ipod for last few years and occasionally and out of handiness i buy the odd album through itunes

I have signed up to the 1 month free with google play music.

So my questions
After the free month its 9.99€ a month for unlimited access ?

I have a 5gb data plan so would be downloading music over wifi, once downloaded whenever I play the music it plays it from device and not streamed.

If I cancel the subscription I presume all the albums i have downloaded will be removed ?

which is better, googly play or Spotify.

Is there similar for movies ?

Thanks again.

jester77 · 18-11-2014 10:58AM

I have used both, now I just use Google Music. In terms of content they are the same. Google Music a much more pleasant experience on the phone. If you download music and cancel then your music is gone. I remember with Spotify that offline music would time out after a while and you would need to go online again before it would play. These days I just stream music, I don't bother with downloading. I listen to about 60-90 mins of music every day and that uses around 2-3 Gb of data a month.

For desktop I find Spotify to be better, the app integration and song discovery is much better than Google music, but they are getting better. They recently purchased a company that specialised in this and it's beginning to show.

As for movies, I use Netflix and Amazon Prime. Prime is better for movies.

Dudda · 18-11-2014 11:08AM

It might be still to early to tell for sure as it’s just launched and in beta but Google Music All Access will get you the new Youtube Music Key for free which will allow you to watch videos add free, listen to them when the screen is off and download them for offline use.

To be honest it’s not the hardest to switch between services and there are ways of transferring your playlists if you want to switch service.

Tony H · 18-11-2014 11:36AM

Google music is great for me . it has a lot of Irish trad music including a lot of old Gael Linn stuff from the 70's
And even better I use my payg credit from 3 to pay for it every month.

DublinBeaker · 18-11-2014 11:42AM

Thanks all for the advice. So I previously bought the odd album through ITunes to listen to in work.
Sometimes downloading and listening to it once and paying 9.99 !

What I can get my head around is that for 9.99 a month i can listen to whatever I want to.

A bit of a newb with the idea of music as a service !

Mantis Toboggan · 18-11-2014 11:52AM

Try both : AFAIK both have trial periods. I've used both and Spotify is better imo. Lot more features/customisations and the app is much better in terms of layout.

Lucas Hood · 18-11-2014 12:10PM

Spotify is way better IMO.
Deezer is even better than Google play music.
Though there is one advantage to play music that you can pay for it through your phone credit on three.

Fuzzy_Dunlop · 18-11-2014 12:29PM

Lucas Hood wrote: »

Spotify is way better IMO.
Deezer is even better than Google play music.
Though there is one advantage to play music that you can pay for it through your phone credit on three.

I've been using spotify for a while now and think it's great for the most part.

But being able to pay with credit would be brilliant for me, I always have tons built up.

symbolic · 18-11-2014 12:33PM

I've used both and they are both fantastic. Crazy to have all the music you want for a tenner a month. Great for listening to bands that have gigs coming up.

I've stuck with Google music myself. I find it handy being able to upload old albums I have that aren't online. But maybe Spotify do this now?

BobMc · 18-11-2014 01:01PM

I'm a deezer fan myself, all personal I guess, I use sonos, have 3 months of spotify at the moment to see if any better than deezer bar the playlists on spotify i still prefer deezer they do offline play also

Genghiz Cohen · 18-11-2014 01:36PM

Used Spotify for a while and really liked it.
Then the Radio got stale and threw up the same 30-40 tracks again and again. Ignoring my downvotes. I couldn't figure out how to undo and upvote or a downvote.
Google Music solved all these issues for the same price, why not switch?

Ludo · 18-11-2014 01:53PM

I am trying to decide between the 2 at the moment also. Will almost definitely go for Google Music purely because of ChromeCast support. Spotify does not have it and it is the deciding factor for me.

Lucas Hood · 18-11-2014 02:00PM

Ludo wrote: »

I am trying to decide between the 2 at the moment also. Will almost definitely go for Google Music purely because of ChromeCast support. Spotify does not have it and it is the deciding factor for me.

Get an app called spoticast it'll let you do that.

Ludo · 18-11-2014 02:06PM

Lucas Hood wrote: »

Get an app called spoticast it'll let you do that.

Yes I know. However, that is a totally unofficial app. I would prefer to use an official app rather than rely on third party stuff which gets removed from the Play store every so often for violating the terms.

Lucas Hood · 18-11-2014 02:08PM

Ludo wrote: »

Yes I know. However, that is a totally unofficial app. I would prefer to use an official app rather than rely on third party stuff which gets removed from the Play store every so often for violating the terms.

Cool story bro.

Ludo · 18-11-2014 02:10PM

Lucas Hood wrote: »

Cool story bro.

What is that meant to mean?

Mantis Toboggan · 18-11-2014 02:14PM

Ludo wrote: »

I am trying to decide between the 2 at the moment also. Will almost definitely go for Google Music purely because of ChromeCast support. Spotify does not have it and it is the deciding factor for me.

Who wants to cast music to a tv?

Bluetooth it to a sound system!!

Ludo · 18-11-2014 02:20PM

Buddy Holly wrote: »

Who wants to cast music to a tv?

Bluetooth it to a sound system!!

Yeah I do that also. Can do that with both so no distinction there for deciding between the 2.

Also chromecast costs 40 quid...I dont have a portable sound system so why spend a lot on one when I can use the chromecast to the tv with a good sound system attached.

Also bluetooth means leaving the controlling device near the player. Not so with Chromecast.

And apparently a good few thousand people want to:

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Ideas/Add-support-for-Google-ChromeCast/idi-p/482900

Professey Chin · 18-11-2014 02:22PM

Buddy Holly wrote: »

Who wants to cast music to a tv?

Bluetooth it to a sound system!!

I cast to my TV cause it has a surround sound system. Plus you only need the devices to be on the same network and it doesn't rely on the phone for the music since it gets it directly from the source

Mantis Toboggan · 18-11-2014 02:46PM

Professey Chin wrote: »

I cast to my TV cause it has a surround sound system. Plus you only need the devices to be on the same network and it doesn't rely on the phone for the music since it gets it directly from the source

Ah yeah that's fine. My sound system is connected to the TV also but I can stream to it with Bluetooth. Works well. Tvs generally have terrible speakers so no point otherwise.

moonboy52 · 18-11-2014 04:45PM

GPMAA allows 20,000 of your own songs to be uploaded. That is a big plus for me over Spotify.

I believe with the launch of Music key, there will be an introductory price of €7.99 like when GPMAA launched here, but not 100% on that.

Keith186 · 18-11-2014 05:43PM

moonboy52 wrote: »

GPMAA allows 20,000 of your own songs to be uploaded. That is a big plus for me over Spotify.

I believe with the launch of Music key, their will be an introductory price of €7.99 like when GPMAA launched here, but not 100% on that.

Seen thatprice rumoured somewhere too. I'd go for Google Music at that price. I got a special offer when I signed up for it at the lower price for life or until I cancel it and its good value.

Google music is definitely improving of late especially since taking over songza and implementing their playlists.

moonboy52 · 18-11-2014 05:47PM

Keith186 wrote: »

Seen thatprice rumoured somewhere too. I'd go for Google Music at that price. I got a special offer when I signed up for it at the lower price for life or until I cancel it and its good value.

Google music is definitely improving of late especially since taking over songza and implementing their playlists.

I hope Songza is rolled out to Ireland and other regions soon. It surely is a matter of when and not if.

Turtwig · 18-11-2014 05:48PM

Used to use Spotify. Marginally preferred it then. GPMAA is very much worth it. Especially if you're using PAYG. I had a massive excess of prepaid call credit with 3. Used Play Music and Play movies to put that credit to some use. In terms of cost differences. With Spotify it was €10 per month. With Google Play music I was paying €20 top up per month and rarely using all that. From that €20 then came 9.99 for Play music. With Spotify I was paying €30 a month because it didn't allow phone credit purchases. This way I'm still only paying €20.

Flaccus · 18-11-2014 07:33PM

I used Play music for a while and the problem with play is it will always default to the highest quality settings if you think your network has the bandwidth. It doesn't matter what you set it to in settings. A bit of a problem when you are on the bus with a 4g signal. Uses data up really fast. Spotify gives you the option to set the quality setting and it sticks. Another issue with play music for some is that once you click on a track it starts caching it to your device. Fine if you are always the type that listens to the full track. And very handy when you relisten or go into an out of coverage area, it won't try to download it again as it will just play locally. Not so fine if you are just flicking through stuff. I remember on one 2 hour journey I used up almost a gig of data, and I probably only listened to a handful of tracks or so but skipped through dozens. Spotify in my view is the better option in terms of data usage.

When at home, I stream spotify from my note 4 to my qacoustics bt3 bluetooth speakers. Very good quality.

AlanS181824 · 18-11-2014 07:40PM

This mightn't work for everyone but....

I've a Vodafone sim, I top it up by €20 every so often and I get Spotify Premium at the reduced rate of €5.99!

Exact same service but it just says under payment on Spotify that my account is managed by Vodafone!

Get a free Vodafone sim, top it up by €10 every month and save yourself €4!

moonboy52 · 18-11-2014 07:45PM

Flaccus wrote: »

I used Play music for a while and the problem with play is....

So even if one selects mobile network stream quality to low, it changes to high on its own? That is not good at all

If you untick cache during playback it still caches?

I must look into it.

AlanS181824 · 18-11-2014 07:48PM

AlanS181824 wrote: »

This mightn't work for everyone but....

I've a Vodafone sim, I top it up by €20 every so often and I get Spotify Premium at the reduced rate of €5.99!

Exact same service but it just says under payment on Spotify that my account is managed by Vodafone!

Get a free Vodafone sim, top it up by €10 every month and save yourself €4!

So this in a way allows you to pay for Spotify with your Vodafone credit and Google Play Music All Access (they really need a shorter name!) With your Three credit!

Both great services.

Raoul · 18-11-2014 08:07PM

Tony H wrote: »

Google music is great for me . it has a lot of Irish trad music including a lot of old Gael Linn stuff from the 70's
And even better I use my payg credit from 3 to pay for it every month.

How do you do that???? :eek:

Turtwig · 18-11-2014 08:11PM

Raoul wrote: »

How do you do that???? :eek:

You have to ensure you're connected through mobile data. Then when you use google play store you have the option of buying stuff using your My 3 account, which is effectively your prepaid call credit. It's incredibly handy. Especially if you have chromecast.

Raoul · 18-11-2014 08:27PM

Cheers. I was paying through debit card. Cancelled that and will sign up now with prepay credit when this month is over.

Google Play Music vs Spotify

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