Digital Trends

Music Gremlin MG-1000 June 20th, 2006 | by Rebecca Day

Once connected, you choose from the main menu to listen to the music stored on the device or get new music from the service. If you're not connected to Wi-Fi, songs are added to a queue and download to the device when you next connect. You can also join the MusicGremlin community where you can download music from others and beam your tracks to them. You have the choice whether to open your library to all MG users, to share just with buddies you specify or not to share at all.

You can do a lot from the player as well, which I really like. You can create a playlist on the fly, using a mix of tunes you've ripped to the player and those you've downloaded from MusicGremlin or other users. Right click on a track you've selected and you have the choice to add it to a playlist, get track info, show the album cover, beam music or delete the song from the player. I love that. I can't delete songs from the iPod without going through the PC.

When you beam a file to another user, the player asks if you're sure you want to beam and asks recipients if they want to receive the tune. If you try to share an MP3 or WMA file from your own collection, you get a message saying that file can't be shared. That should make the record companies happy.

A couple of times I doubled-ordered tunes by mistake, not having gotten reinforcement quickly enough that the order had been received. A MusicGremlin representative says in those cases subscribers would be reimbursed, or not charged, if they were on the a la carte plan.

Mysteriously, Billy Joel's “It's Still Rock and Roll to Me” appeared on my player, and I don't know where it came from. I didn't select it for download, nor did I have an option to accept the download, as I did when other Gremlin users sent me tunes. Fortunately I don't find Billy Joel objectionable so it was fine. If it had been the Starland Vocal Band and “Afternoon Delight,” it would have been a different story.