We've seen a few Wi-Fi-enabled music players before--remember SoniqCast and Tao?--but never one that works with a music subscription service. (However, Zing, another Wi-Fi portable, is in the works.)


A $14.99 monthly fee lets you grab all the music you want--or, at least, all that will fit on the 8GB MusicGremlin device--from the MusicGremlin Direct online store. Clever community features let you browse other Gremlin owners' downloads and swap songs with friends.

There are some healthy restrictions in place, though, such as weak battery life, small storage capacity, and the fact that you can trade songs only with friends who have subscriptions.

We like the product and applaud the innovation, but we doubt that this first-generation offering provides enough value to attract a large number of users.

Design
About the same size as the first-generation Apple Computer iPod, the MusicGremlin measures 4.1 by 2.4 by 0.8 inches and offers a 2-inch, 220-by-176-pixel color screen. The front and back are glossy black, while the contoured sides and the selection pad have a matte finish and a rubbery feel. It's deceptively lightweight, and the unit feels remarkably like a thick piece of foam.

Hardly a sleek and sexy player, its looks are just a bit goofy. But we grew to like them, particularly because of the simple array of buttons.

The rubbery center selection pad lets you move between menus and choose songs and options, while the on/off/hold switch is on the left side. The volume, play/pause, and forward/reverse controls are on the right. We desperately wanted to relocate them to the front, so that we could use the player with just a thumb. Still, we appreciated the dedicated volume and player controls. The headphone jack is on the top, while the bottom has line-in, mini-USB, reset and power ports.

The player uses a side-scrolling interface, like the iPod's, where you move through menus to the right. Some options, such as those for downloading or sending a song, appear in small pop-up windows that can, at first, be confusing to select. Icons along the bottom let you know the battery level, how many songs are in your download queue, and if you're connected to a Wi-Fi or ad-hoc network.

While the menus are simple and utilitarian, the playback screen has a little more character, with album art, and red and blue highlights.

A small light on the upper left of the player also shows your connection status, glowing green for Wi-Fi and blue for ad-hoc. Both the display and Wi-Fi connection lights are easy to see during the day. When the green connection light is on, you get a certain satisfaction knowing that others can "see" you and that you're downloading songs.

The MusicGremlin has a small internal speaker that plays music faintly when headphones aren't connected. We're told that a sleep timer will be added in the next few months, so that you can fall asleep to your MusicGremlin.

The MusicGremlin comes with a pair of matching black stereo headphones (with a tangle-prone rubbery texture) but no belt clip or case. It's too bad, because the glossy finish is a fingerprint magnet.

Features
The MusicGremlin comes in one storage size: 8GB, which holds about 2,000 MP3, WMA, or WMA DRM tracks.

It's PlaysForSure-certified, so you can transfer subscription or purchased tracks from most other online stores--just not wirelessly. You can use the player without a subscription to the company's MusicGremlin Direct service ($14.99 per month, on the pricey side of portable subscriptions), but in that case, you might as well take the same $299 and buy a 30GB video iPod, because you'd be missing out on what makes the Gremlin unique.

With a subscription and an 802.11 wireless connection, you can go shopping right from your player and download all the new tunes you want. Downloads are 128Kbps WMA DRM tracks. With or without a subscription, you can purchase tracks at 99 cents each. Purchased tracks can then be transferred to your Windows XP PC, saved and used on other devices.

The 2-million-track music library directory is actually saved and invisibly updated to the Gremlin, so you don't waste time or Wi-Fi battery life downloading track information whenever you browse the catalog.

We found the catalog consistent with that of other online stores. It's strong in rock and pop, and it's likely to have every popular artist you want, if not every song. Since you have the database right on the device, you'll notice tons of artists and albums you've never heard of. You browse by spelling out the artist or song you're looking for, then clicking the select button to jump into the directory when you're close to the right place. It seems cumbersome at first, but after a few tries, you'll be scrolling quickly.

Enter Download Manager (one of nine items on the main menu), and you can monitor the status of your downloads. You can even move a song to the front of the queue, a good feature if the song you want to listen to now is at the back end of 59 titles.