Verizon V CAST Music service reviewed

We checked out Verizon's V CAST Music service at CES, and found it to be an adequate way to get music onto a cellphone. Now that the service has officially launched, Laptop Magazine has gone ahead and conducted an in-depth test of the service, using both a phone and a PC to download songs. Their conclusion: while the service made it easy to find songs, and downloading was relatively speedy, there were some major software glitches, including the inability to use your phone's other features while listening to music (which also plagues Sprint's music service) and a clunky syncing process to transfer music from a PC to a phone (which you can avoid by using a card reader to copy music directly to your phone's MiniSD card. Overall, Laptop found the service to be a bit better than Sprint's music store, simply by dint of being "cheaper and easier to use." But we'd have to agree with the conclusion that "people are unlikely to ditch their iPods for this version."

[Thanks, Bill]

[PauldG @ Jan 20th 2006 6:34PM]

sooner or later this will challenge ipods, b/c the hardware is almost there and the OTA music services are getting started, and cingular's 3G network should fix Engadget's gripe of not being able to take a call and use the network at the same time.

[boss sauce @ Jan 20th 2006 7:20PM]

EDITOR: unmatched open parenthesis:

"...transfer music from a PC to a phone (which you can avoid by using a card reader to copy music directly to your phone's MiniSD card. Overall, Laptop found the service to be a bit better than Sprint's music store, simply by dint of being "cheaper and easier to use." But we'd have to agree with the conclusion that "people are unlikely to ditch their iPods for this version."

[Tim @ Jan 20th 2006 9:14PM]

The SE w900i seems to be pretty good at playing music and being a phone. Too bad it can't be picked up by a US carrier.