Samsung Brings Music Hub Service To The U.S., Galaxy S III Users Get First Dibs
Samsung’s Music Hub service, which originally launched in the UK, is now available to Galaxy S III owners here in the U.S. Samsung’s Music Hub is like a Google Muisc/iTunes/Amazon Cloud Player/Spotify/Pandora Radio/etc., etc., all mixed into one. If you’re familiar with any of those services, then the Music Hub concept will be extremely familiar to you. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s take a look at what exactly the service offers, how much it costs, and whether or not it’s something you may be interested in.
First things first: Samsung’s Music Hub is only available in the U.S. for Samsung Galaxy III users who happen to be on AT&T or U.S. Cellular. If you’re on T-Mobile, Sprint or Verizon, you’re SOL (for now). If you do own an AT&T or U.S. Cellular Samsung Galaxy S III, then continue reading.
Samsung’s Music Hub has both free and premium services. All new users will have the ability to try out the premium service at no cost for 30 days. After that, the premium service costs $9.99 per month. So what’s the difference between free and premium?
Music Hub Store (free) allows users to:
- Access millions of songs from the 7digital catalog – which includes music from all four major labels (Sony, EMI, Universal, and Warner), plus select independents– from which users can buy tracks and albums, as well as listen to 30-second previews of all songs
- Store purchased music in the cloud, allowing it to automatically load on all registered Music Hub devices, while still being available on those registered devices locally for offline listening
- Use the Music Hub web player, in addition to the mobile app, with which users can access their music library and the Music Hub catalog/store online at www.musichub.com
Music Hub Premium ($9.99 per month, with a free 30-day trial offered) offers access to all of the free version features, as well as:
- A Scan & Match Cloud Locker: Upload music to the cloud to play it on any device registered with a Music Hub account. Music Hub also utilizes scan-and-match technology to decrease upload time and ensure high-quality playback. Any unmatched songs are directly uploaded from user’s library to the cloud offering 100 GB of storage for all unmatched songs, so users can access rare or personal recordings across their devices. Music Hub also automatically updates playlists or music purchases music updated across all registered devices.
- A catalog of millions of songs for purchase AND streaming: Enjoy full access to 7digital’s entire Music Hub catalog, including music from all four major labels, to stream or purchase, with unlimited plays and no advertisements. Search for new music, create playlists, share songs with friends, and view lyrics and album information.
- Personalized and Custom Radio: Create personal stations based on favorite songs and artists, or browse genre stations recommended and custom-created by the Music Hub team. Users also can tag songs they like to find and play back later.
- Customized Recommendations: Discover great new songs, artists, albums and radio stations all the time – and the more users listen, the better Music Hub’s recommendations will get.
At this point in the game, users are surely using some other form of “Music Hub,” so will it really be worth it for them to switch? That’s a decision you’ll have to make on your own, but at least you have a free 30 days to make it. We’ll be testing it out for the next 30 days and we’ll let you know what we think when we’re done. Until then, you can try it out yourself or grab more information by following the links below.
