Nokia Music PC Client

Review Conditions

The Nokia Music PC Client version 1.0 is installed on a Windows XP SP 3. The mobile device that is synced with the Nokia Music PC Client is a Nokia E71, which is based on Symbian S60 3^rd edition. This is not a review of Comes With Music (CWM) service that is integrated with the Nokia Music PC Client. That requires a special CWM Nokia mobile phone and a subscription to the service.

Installation

Installation is fairly simple. The installation file is very unimaginatively called “setup.exe”. I stored it in a folder where I keep all my installation files and I was asked if I would like to overwrite another setup.exe. So, just remember to rename it to something that you’ll easily remember if you want to install the file again. If you are like me who just goes back to the Google search, look it up and download the file again next time you need it, even if you have it somewhere on your computer, don’t bother renaming the file.

First View

Why is Nokia revamping its desktop music client?

Nokia’s renewed business strategy of consumer internet services has given birth to Ovi, Comes With Music, etc and the Nokia Music PC Client is an integral part of this new strategy. To counter iTunes, the iPod eco system, Nokia must have a very solid desktop music client that allows sync with the Nokia mobiles, access the online music store and organize and manage the thousands of digital music tracks in every music lover’s desktop.

Nokia’s music eco system has been fragmented and very poorly designed so far. The PC Suites have a music player that’s woefully inadequate as a desktop PC Client. It was bearable for s40 devices that supported music playback. Nokia has a tie up with Microsoft’s Windows Music Player for sync and managing music on the mobile device. But after the release of integrated consumer internet services, a dedicated desktop music client for Nokia became an absolute necessity. The Nokia Music PC Client should have hit the market a few years back when the first music centric Nokia phones were released and by now there would be millions of loyal users of the application. The reason I am saying this is that the desktop music client is a very sticky application. Once you start using it to manage songs, create playlists, rate music and download podcasts, you will be extremely reluctant to start this all over again in a different pc client.

I would very much love to use a 16 GB N96 as my phone cum music player since I can, with a little effort, fit in most of my favorite playlists into the device. I hate carrying two devices every time I venture out. But the pain of moving all my music collection from iTunes, checking if all my MP3 tags are in order so that I can create smart playlists that change every day based on the music I listed yesterday, is just not worth it. Besides, the playcount of all my tracks will be lost when I migrate and I’d lose the smart playlists anyway. That’s why the Nokia Music PC Client should have been around a few years back, when people were discovering the beauty of mp3 playback on the mobile phones. But if you are like my aunt who doesn’t even know that there are tags in an MP3 file that can be used to group and organize music based on Artist, Genre, Year, etc, you would just copy all the track to the N96 or Nokia 5800 XpessMusic and get going.

Main Features

Find Your Way Around

The application starts up with a pretty neat “Find your way around” guide. It’s a rollover tutorial where you can roll the mouse on each element of the application and a helptext pops up. The layout of the music player is quite well organized. Almost every aspect of a music player’s operation has been packed into the single screen and can be reached with a single click. That’s most commendable.

Music Folder Collection – Import your tracks

A music folder collection can be specified in the “Options” Menu. It took surprisingly long time to import all the tracks into the Nokia Music PC Client. During this time, the application was very slow and it’s better to leave it to its own devices until it’s completely done.

Nokia Music PC Client also regularly checks the music folder collection for new tracks and updates. When I change the file name of a track on iTunes, Nokia Music PC Client almost instantaneously reflected the change. I have been praying for ages that iTunes should have this feature and Nokia version 1 has it!! I am quite impressed. It’s not a deal breaker of a feature but it’s great to see that Nokia has this in design from start.

My Collection View

Almost all information about a track can be found in one of the several columns available on the main window. The tracks can be grouped based on Artist, Album, Genre and Recently Added. Static Playlists can be created. Smart Playlists are not supported. Some built in smart playlists are Most Played, Recently Played, Recently Added, Top Rated and All Purchased. These are updated dynamically. Smart Playlists is one feature that I’d like to see very quickly. Playlists can be exported as .wpl or .mpu playlists. Mp3 tags can be added to the tracks and can also be modified. Album Art and Lyrics can also be added.

Now Playing Queue

A Queue is created with a list of files that are currently being played. The Queued files can be grouped into a Playlist, which is par for the course for any desktop music player. The Queue has a shuffle option that works great.

Devices

The left pane, lists the various data storage locations for music. The first location is the PC itself. Next are the CD Drive and the Nokia mobile phone, when it is connected via USB.

The mobile phone that is connected to the PC via a USB Cable must be connected in the “Media Player” or “Printing & Media” mode to be detected by the Nokia Music PC Client. I think its high time Nokia designs a single interface that detects which kind of connection mode a user wants. There is only one connection mode for the iPod/iPhone and you can use it for sync, as a USB memory device, etc. That’s the usability that we need. I didn’t try connecting multiple devices to the Nokia Music PC Client.

Internet

The client is well integrated with the internet music store and purchased music. In the Navigation Area, there is a “Store” tab that takes you to the music store on the Internet. On the Player area, there is a “Recommended” tab that searches similar music on the Nokia Music Store. For each track, you can right-click and select “Show me more from” to get similar music. This takes us to the Music Store. You can also get the “Track Details” from the right-click menu.

I didn’t purchase any music on the Nokia Music Store. It’s now available only in some countries of Europe.

Ripping Music

Music can be ripped from a CD into several formats like MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+ and WMA and the quality of the ripped digital music track can also be specified.

Transferring music to the E71 – Transfer Partnership

The Nokia Music PC Client detected my E71 and was “Searching the Nokia Handset for music” for quite a while the first time and then it crashed. It worked fine the second time and afterwards too. The first attempt to transfer music to the device was a failure. Then I discovered that I didn’t have a “transfer partnership” with the device. I somehow assumed that the transfer partnership was only needed if the Nokia Music PC Client has to perform auto transfer every time the device is connected. After setting up a “transfer partnership”, music transfer did happen, albeit slowly.

Disconnecting the E71

There is no explicit button on the Nokia Music PC Client to disconnect the mobile phone. I just pulled out the USB cable. iTunes has a neat button that lets the user remove the device from iTunes. That gives a reassuring feeling. I expect Nokia to have that feature soon.

Operations on the tracks on the mobile and sync

Did you notice that I used the term “Transferring music” and not “sync music”. That’s right; I can transfer music from the desktop to the phone but cannot transfer or sync music from the phone to the PC. Even operations on the tracks like renaming a track on the mobile phone cannot be synced back to the PC. In future, Nokia should allow sync of tracks in either direction.

Technology

Nokia Music PC Client is one of the first applications to use Microsoft’s new WPF technology which in the future will allow us to introduce some cool and innovative enhancements in the coming months. This is not relevant now from a user’s perspective.

Help File

A pretty detailed Help is available, but you wouldn’t really need it to begin using the application. Surprisingly, the Help file was always on top as long as it was open. It completely disabled Nokia Music PC Client until it is closed.

Handling

The supported devices list has also been extended to include the following devices: N76, N78, N81, N82, N91, N95, N95 8GB, N96, 5220, 5310, 5320, 5610, 6210, 6220, E66, E71. But if you want to use the Nokia Music PC Client along with CWM, only 2 devices are supported currently, the Nokia 5310 and Nokia N95 8GB. In future, more devices should be supported.

Every thing is drag n drop. You can drag n drop files to and from the device, to the queue, etc. Using the Nokia Music PC Client was very simple.

Weaknesses

Two applications reside in memory after the installation, the NokiaMServer.exe and NokiaMusic.exe, together occupying a minimum of 50 megabytes and going upwards of 130 megabytes when it is combing over the music folder collection and making a database of the tracks. That’s a log of memory hog and I hope later versions will have this fixed.

Overall, I must say the application was very slow and did not respond to clicks and navigation as you’d expect on a high end Windows XP desktop. I held my breadth every time I performed an operation because I wasn’t sure if it would respond, but I got used to the slowness of the application after some time. But when I got back to using Winamp, it was like moving from Win 3.1 to Win XP.

Conclusion

The Nokia Music PC Client graduated from Nokia Beta labs and is now available at http://music.nokia.com/download. It is pretty well featured for version 1.0 but it’s far from being labeled the final version. I am sure Nokia will make improvements over a period of time. It is definitely worth a look. If you are going to use Nokia mobiles as music players, then it’s a must have.

Here’s my (partial) wish list for the next version:

1. Podcasts
2. Smart Playlists
3. Low Memory Usage and speedy navigation
4. Single Sync option when device is connected via USB
5. Music Sync in both directions

Tagged as: Comes With Music, Music PC Client, Nokia

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