Rdio (for Windows Phone)

• Pros

  Decent interface, with Windows Phone-specific features. Large music catalog. Good sound quality.

• Cons Free account not very functional. No Internet radio station creation. Play controls don't show while you're multitasking in app. Weak social-sharing capabilities.
• Bottom Line

  Rdio is an excellent music streaming service, but you wouldn't know that from its Windows Phone app.

By Michael Muchmore

Rdio (free; $9.99 per month for full song plays) is the cool new kid among streaming music services, with a trendy but usable design and a full-featured Web interface. The service's Windows Phone app brings some of this slickness, along with Rdio's large selection of music, but it's pretty deficient compared with the Web and iPhone versions of the service. Missing are basics like similar-music radio station creation and adding social contacts. And the free version is little more than a song-preview service.

Getting Started With Rdio
You get the free Rdio app from the Windows Phone Store. It's a very small 2MB download, though its storage usage will balloon if you download a lot of songs for offline listening. I tested the app by installing it on a Nokia Lumia Icon. You can sign up with any email address or with your Facebook credentials. Next, you accept the terms of service, and choose whether you want Rdio to take over your lock screen with album art for currently playing songs.

The first thing you'll see is the upgrade option, but you won't need this for three days: The app automatically starts as a trial of the $9.99 per month Rdio Unlimited subscription, which offers on-demand song playing and offline listening. If you're not a paid subscriber, you can't do much besides play 30-second previews of songs you find. By comparison, Slacker and Spotify's free versions at least let you play shuffled albums and related songs in Pandora style. While Rdio's Web and iPhone versions do this, too, the Windows Phone app doesn't.

Interface
Rdio has a classic Windows Phone interface, with left-to-right swiping between functions. In this case your choices are the home screen (with links to your profile, collection, playlists, queue, and Now Playing), Heavy Rotation, Recent Activity, Top Charts, and New Releases. Under all these pages is a Search button that lets you find any artist, song, or album.

On your profile page, you can see your collection, playlists, followers, and following list. Swipe right and you'll see your top albums and recent activity. One thing I prefer about Spotify's interface is that you always see the currently playing song across the bottom no matter what you're doing in the app. With Rdio, you have to navigate back to your home screen and choose Now Playing just to pause or skip.

Rdio's Music Selection
Rdio's catalog is more than large enough to suit most tastes. Along with the latest popular and indie hits from four major record labels, you get the tunes of Michael Jackson and Jimi Hendrix, but Led Zeppelin and Beatles lovers need to look elsewhere. The jazz and classical sections are well-stocked, and you also get comedy if you prefer laughing to singing along. It's not quite iTunes' selection, but it will work for most users. 

Though there's no setting in the app for sound quality, I tested with my phone connected to high-quality PC speakers using Shostakovich's fiery 10th Symphony as performed by the Liverpool Philharmonic as a test track. In a back-to-back comparsion, the sound was every bit as good as Spotify's High Quality mode.

Social
Rdio has a pretty good social story, but not so much in the Windows Phone app. You can't share a song or album while playing it; in fact I could only find users to follow using another version of Rdio, such as the website. From the app, however, I could see recent activity by those I followed and subscribe to their playlists. One unique capability of Rdio is collaborative playlists, which is a good idea.

Rdio for Windows Phone Needs a Redo
Rdio is one of the cooler music services around, but its Windows Phone app needs work. Yes, it lets you find and play the music with high-quality sound from its strong catalog. And yes, it lets you see what your contacts are up to, but, especially in the free version, it's just way too limited. No radio, no social sharing, and no full song plays for free.

Hopefully Rdio will upgrade its Windows Phone app so that it can compete with the likes of Spotify, Slacker, and Xbox Music. Once we've reviewed all of those services on the Windows Phone platform, we'll designate a new Editors' Choice for on-demand streaming music apps. But in its current form, the Rdio app isn't much of a contender. Meanwhile, you can check out Pandora, our Editors' Choice for Windows Phone Internet radio apps.