Samsung music hub may come to India soon

It allows the users to browse, listen, and purchase selected songs from a catalogue of over 10 million Mp3 songs.

Samsung Music Hub, a dedicated music service for Samsung smartphones and tablets, might just come to India sooner than later. It allows the users to browse, listen, and purchase selected songs from a catalogue of over 10 million Mp3 songs. 

Ranjit Yadav, country head, mobile and IT business, Samsung India, said this during the launch ceremony of the Samsung Galaxy SII in India recently. He also added that the Music Hub will soon start featuring on smartphones starting with the Samsung Galaxy SII. 

The next big thing in feature phones: Cloud

Users will benefit from the low cost of phones because they won't need to store apps on their phone and will be able to access apps from a cloud server.

We keep hearing about new smartphones, but it appears Samsung and Motorola are going to surprise us with a new concept — cloud based mobile phones.

These are cheaper phones that will run on software stored in a remote server, or cloud. Usually, the data accessed by smartphones resides on the phone itself, thus raising the cost of the device. Cloud phones, on the other hand, will have no need to carry data with them. Rather, users can just pluck data from the cloud and use it as per their convenience.

Online music service from Google

The service would allow the users to upload their music collection to the Google server and play it from any Android phone, compatible smartphone apps or even personal computer browsers.

Google is all set to unveil its online music service, similar to the Amazon's service that was launched in March, today. According to the Wall Street Journal, the service will work more like digital music locker. 

Users would be able to upload their music collection to the Google server and play it from any Android phone, compatible smartphone apps or even personal computer browsers. Users would, however, only be able to stream the music as Google would not allow downloads to curb music piracy.

Since both Google and Amazon haven't received licenses from major record labels, they would not be able to give users access to music stored in company servers. Apple is already talking to the record labels for getting required licenses to provide music services.

From outside, it appears Google would like to launch its music service before Apple. 

Top five music phones in India

Music phones are becoming more relevant with increasing digital options including app stores, streaming websites and more.

Many people would not buy a phone unless it had FM or an MP3 player as these users are not satisfied with just the ability to make calls. If you are one of them, here are a few phones that will keep you humming all the time.

Nokia N8 (Rs 22,699)

Nokia N8 makes a great music player, especially since it organises tracks efficiently. Scrolling is smooth and the user interface is visually attractive.

Music lovers want a loud speaker and it's there in the Nokia N8, so users can enjoy music even if they don't have a headphone handy.

It is possible to use either Bluetooth stereo headphones or wired 3.5 mm jack headphones with this Nokia device, which even has an FM player. One great feature of the phone is that it has an FM transmitter with which users can transmit songs loaded on the phone to an FM radio nearby, such as the one in a car audio system.