Google Play Music is a combination of a device-based music player and streaming music utility.

Functioning both on smartphones and tablets, Google Play Music also provides users a way to access large amounts of music through a Wi-Fi or data connection. The application is very useful for users who have smaller on-device storage. Google Play Music requires a Gmail account to link the account from Music Manager to Google Play Music.

Used without Google’s Music Manager, Google Play Music is a standard music playback application. Google Play Music sorts music files through different options like: Recent, Artists, Albums, Songs, Playlists, and Genres. Google Play Music has options for adding songs to playlists or searching for more information about the artist online. The application links to Google Search to show purchase availability of artists.

Unfortunately, Google Play Music does not have a built-in equalizer to customize the sound. Songs can be uploaded into storage on the device using an USB connection.

With Google’s Music Manager, Google Play Music is an excellent application. Essentially, users do not have to have any music on their device in order to play music, and they can stream music to their device over a data connection by using cloud storage. Music uploaded through Music Manager can then be downloaded to the device for offline listening. Music Manager is required for uploading music online and depending on the size of the library, it can take a long time.

The quality of the streaming music can be changed within the options as well as streaming via Wi-Fi only. The streaming quality of Google Play Music is impressive. There were no issues playing high quality 320 kbps songs.

Google Play Music is the perfect combination of offline music player and personal online streaming service.