Review: Deezer
Score:
65%
Here comes (yet) another streaming music application. It does everything that all the other streaming music applications do (with some wrinkles), it looks quite nice, and it gets the job done. In a market with a number of solutions, Deezer's only issue is that some of its features are geographically locked out.
Buy Link | Download / Information Link
Paired up with the Deezer website, this multi-platform client allows you access to the Deezer music collection in the form of streaming music on demand (much like Spotify), a recommendation engine driven radio-style channel (think Last.fm), and songs that you have bookmarked while listening.
It's also very respectful of your choices. The first thing it asked me when running was where I wanted it to store the program data, i.e. the internal memory or the SD card. Then to confirm which Internet connection to use - admittedly there is a default option in the OS I'd expect it to default to, but this is the next best thing. That could be down to the use of java in the application, which likely makes it easier for the developers to be cross-platform, but does mean some of the finer points of the OS and UI are missed out.
I'll also blame java for the menu buttons that look much more like Android than Symbian!
If you haven't got an account, you'll be offered the option to register - this cleanly takes you out of the Deezer application and to a registration page in the browser. It seems overly complicated, and this would have been better handled inside the application.
Hoops jumped through, what's on offer here? As noted, not every part of Deezer is available to everyone in the world. Dealing with digital music online is tricky, and is strictly region dependent, so the French company doesn't have "on demand" available for the whole world. Scotland will have to do without getting the exact track wanted. But no matter, the streaming radio and suggestions list are working well for me.
Webradio is a genre-based streaming option, where you can select your favourite style of music (although the French roots of the app show through, with Jazz and Chanson Francaise featuring high up in the list). Deezer delivers up your track, along with the full album art, and the ability to add the playing track to a playlist for listening to later (assuming you're in the right area of the world, otherwise it's 30 second clips only).
You can't skip over a track in the Webradio option, which seems to be an omission, because this option is there in the SmartRadio option. Here you can specify an artist, group or performer and have Deezer bring you their music, or music that is similar.
Alright then, standard test for any music recommendation engine like this... how does it cope with "The Beatles" (who, apart from some retail options last year, have never digitally licenced music). Sensibly and legally, Deezer delivered some non-music options of the band (a recorded interview of John Lennon in this case), and then a track from The Arctic Monkeys. Which, once you get past the surface, does sound very Lennon-esque and reminds me of Instant Karam. But not anything close to the Merseybeat sound.
I had more luck with the Rolling Stones, throwing up solo songs, tracks from the band, and some nice associations with late 60's rock bands.
Webradio has one interesting limitation, you can only skip five tracks in every hour, which is more down to their music licence to make it "radio like" rather than "on demand like". It keeps the cost down, and Deezer have worked really hard to get the licenses and build up the catalogue (now standing at around seven million tracks available), so I'd expect them to be scrupulous in following the licenses they have from music companies such as Universal.
While I can understand the regional issues that a music application like this has (and the developer's have decided to offer it in the UK, even with the rights restrictions, hence it does deserve a review), there's a lot to like about Deezer. It has a slick interface, the music caching and streaming is smooth, it never jumped for me, and the audio quality hasn't been sacrificed, at least over wi-fi.
It is one of many options, and to be honest with half of my SD card full of music (around 7GB), I'll get a bit more pleasure out of shuffle in Music player than a streaming service, but a lot of people love their streaming options. So add Deezer to the 'worth looking at' pile. But it's a pile that already has Last.fm, VirtualRadio, MyStrands, Pandora, a plethora of Liquid Air bespoke stations, and much more.
-- Ewan Spence, Aug 2011.
Reviewed by Ewan Spence at