Vodafone launches MusicStation for it’s Christmas handset range

Remember Omniphone’s MusicStation? Created a buzz a while ago? Well it’s coming — on Vodafone. That’s a bit of a coup.

For just £1.99 a week you’ll have unlimited music downloads — with a choice of over a million tracks from the leading major and independent labels. It’ll work on most of Vodafone’s existing handsets, however it’s being pushed big time for the Vodafone Christmas handset range, which, by the way, includes the Nokia N95 8GB.

This has the potential to seriously compete with other operator offerings — most notably, 3UK’s music download service. It’ll also be interesting to see how customers react to MusicStation vs Apple iTunes.

If you’re finally able to use your handset’s music capabiliities properly (that is, without the idiot handset manufacturer or mobile operator dreaming up rubbish ways for music to work) — it looks like MusicStation have actually given some serious thought to how the service works — I wonder if you might be persuaded to leave your iPod at home?

You can share playlists and tracks with other people with MusicStation — you’ve also got Last.fm style features like recommending tracks and seeing what other people (who like what you like) are listening to.

You can theoretically have a 50 gig library of music via MusicStation, even if your phone only has 50mb on board memory. Why? MusicStation uses your data connection to dynamically order what’s stored on your phone. About-to-be-played music is downloaded and stored on your handset, whilst that Michael Jackson track that you really like but not enough to play regularly is available on-demand. When you click ‘Billie Jean’ I imagine there will be a few seconds delay then it’ll start playing.

So I haven’t had a chance to actually check out MusicStation. It does look like a compelling offering. Allied with Vodafone’s might here in the UK, … it could be good.

Oh, and the Vodafone Christmas Handset range? (Includes..)

– Nokia N95 8GB
– Nokia N81
– Samsung F700
– Samsung F210
– Sony Ericsson W910i
– Sony Ericsson V640i
– Sony Ericsson W960i
– Vodafone 810
– Vodafone 716