From Norway a new music service has arrived called WiMP that is available on the market todayh here in Sweden. We have a given the service a spin. 

Connection to last.fm

You can also log on to the music service Last.fm over Wimp and thus get more personalized recommendations. Last.fm knows what you’re listening to (if you use the service) and can match your musical tastes and find new artists you like. While you can choose to Wimp to send further information about what you listen to your account at Last.fm.

The recommendations you get up when starting the Wimp Mobile shows latest news, followed by recommended songs and albums. A dozen songs appear in a list and then you can click forward more. The mobile program can also search for music and will receive suggestions directly in the search window. This makes it easier to find the song or artist you’re looking for WIMPs search. At the bottom of playlists and albums is a link labeled “Store offline”.

No free version

There is no free version of the Wimp. You can subscribe and get first month free, but then you pay 99 SEK per month to remain as a  subscriber. When you listen to free from any number of mobile phones and computers as long as your account is only active on a device at a time, just like Spotify works, that is. When playing music in Android version of Wimp  a small icon appears at the top of the screen when doing other things with your phone. If you pull down the status bar you see album art, artist and current track, and how much of the song being played. Some little remote control as a widget on the home screen, there is not, so you have to click into the Wimp program if you want to change your tune.

Design

The search in WiMP is actually better then Spotify. During my usage I have found that WiMP actually has a better selection of music then what Spotify has.  Personally I feel that WiMP has a better design in their mobile client

Testing the Android client

The Android client that we have tested automatically syncs your playlists from the PC application to your mobile. Sync will work either way so I can create or modify a playlist on my smartphone and the changes will be updated on my desktop. The mobile application for Android, you can also create favorites for easy return. A favorite may be either a song, artist or album. They collected all over the star icon in the mobile application.

Wimp would themselves like to be perceived as a music service with a strong content and they highlight this by making personalised recommendations on what you listen to available..

Conclusion

As it is right now I have a tough time going back to Spotify. It has both better design and a better music library.  If you have WiMP available on your marketplace I would recommend that you give it a spin…