3. Compared To Other Music Players And Services

Mercora M is designed to look a lot like iTunes and it only partly succeeds. There are the sparse menus (see the Main Menu screen shot above) that can take you through its music genres. You can mark channels as your favorites and return to them quickly (see Favorites screen shot below). It will display the album cover art if it can find it and that is a nice touch, although sometimes I saw the wrong album for the songs that were playing.

Part of the problem is the Smartphones themselves: they don't have the storage or the smarts that even the most basic iPod has, or any other dedicated MP3 music player for that matter. You have to use the phone controls for basic volume, but it is missing equalizers and other acoustic enhancements that most MP3 players now have. One good thing is that at least the music is interrupted when you get an incoming call.

One of the features in M is the ability to share your favorites with others via Instant Messenger. This is more fully implemented in the full Windows client, where you have to "recommend" M to at least one of your IM buddies before you can even install the software. I found this somewhat annoying.

Conclusions

So what is the bottom line on M? It is less expensive (if you already have a cellphone broadband data plan) than a satellite radio receiver but less reliable and more finicky too. Both satellite companies now offer a selection of smallish receivers that are similar to the kinds of Smartphones available for M, so the portability gap may be closing there. M has a wide music catalog but not as deep as Rhapsody (and to some extent, the other music streaming services). It isn't easy as iTunes to incorporate and synchronize music that you have already paid for and ripped onto your hard drive. M held the fascination of my two teenage testers for about five minutes, which is probably not the right market segment for M anyway but a good indication of the uphill battle that anyone will have in this market space.

If you enjoy discovering new music and have the right Smartphone to take advantage of the service, try it out for free for two weeks to see if the initial buzz sticks with you. But I certainly don't recommend buying a new phone and a new broadband data plan just for this service, and would recommend waiting until the next software version - and support for more phones - comes out before signing up for a year's worth of music.

For more on Mercora see www.mercora.com.

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