Dizzler review

Clare Hopping

We review Dizzler, a music streaming app that is up against the big boys including Last.FM and Spotify

Published on May 6, 2009

It's not as if we need another music streaming application on mobile, because Spotify, Last.FM and Imeem cover it so well, but what's the harm in introducing their distant relative, known as Dizzler.

Unlike the most commonly used music applications, Dizzler doesn't actually host music to play. The app scours the web for your search term and then streams any music found to your Android device.

This does of course mean that it essentially 'steals' music, but a disclaimer on the app covers the company for any infringement mishaps. No guilt felt there then.

Dizzler is pretty well connected to the website, where you can create playlists (something you're unable to do on the mobile version), and as yet you can't transfer the playlists from the web to your mobile. This is something that will apparently change with the next version of the app, presumably to improve compatibility with the 1.5 Cupcake firmware update.

Another issue is that the mobile version doesn't find many tracks when compared with the web version, and there's no indication that this will be rectified with the next edition.

The interface is pretty basic - there are four tabs along the top: Dizzler, which takes you to the homescreen, Search, Browse (by top artists, songs, genre), and player, which streams the music. Basic doesn't mean bad though. It's easy to navigate through the four, and search is speedy when you consider it has to trawl through most of the interweb to find music files that match your search terms.

However, when it comes to streaming, there is a noticeable problem. More often than not, the app will spend a lengthy time buffering the tracks rather than playing them, even on HSDPA, so trying to use the application when you only have a 3G connection is impossible.

Another quirk to Dizzler compared to other music-based applications is that when your selected track has finished, it won't automatically start playing the next track. It's all very manual. This does on one hand mean you can choose what you want to listen to when, but it's not very convenient when you're trying to do something else (say write or read a book) while listening to streamed tunes.

If you are a karaoke king (or queen), Dizzler will also download the lyrics for the song as it's playing , so if you really want to clear the bus of all occupants on your way to work, you can do this by switching your phone to speaker and sing along at the same time. Perfect!

Dizzler is a decent app if you want to listen to the odd track while on the move or find the lyrics to your favourite tune. However, without the choice to create playlists on mobile, option listen to a whole album or a large collection of artists to choose from, it's a bit disappointing. Roll on version 2!