After reading about Gua Muzik on the Maybank2u website, I decided to give it a try. We was never aware of any kind of website here in Malaysia that offers downloads through the internet. So I was excited to try out what Gua Muzik had to offer.
First of, the selection of songs. To keep up with the current favourites on radio, Gua Muzik lists out 3 major music chart. Freaky Fly 30 from FlyFM, HotFM Tiga Puluh from HotFM and Carta Utama Muzik MuzikTV3 from . So it was easier to find songs that you hear on the radio or TV.
Gua Muzik highlights all the New Releases, TOP 100 Downloads, TOP 20 Malay Downloads and TOP 20 English downloads on its main page as well. So you’d know what song is a hit at that time. You can even browse for songs by genre, ranging from Chinese, Nasyid to Tamil/Hindi in the Local/Regional section or from OST, Jazz to Oldies songs in the International section.
But not all songs listed in the charts are available for downloads though, just so you know.
Moving on to the downloading process. Before deciding to buy any of the songs, you can listen to a short clip of the selected song. A temporary playlist is automatically created, which explains why the built-in player wouldn’t shut-up after I press the Play button.
Most of the songs are priced at RM3/RM4 per song and RM30 per album (tak kesahlah brape lagu dalam satu album). Songs have a bitrate of 192K and most songs have a limited usage. Its in Windows Media Audio (WMA) format, for security reasons. Anyhow, selecting songs on the main page, automatically adds it in the shopping cart without any notice. So setelah diklik beberapa kali, baru tersedar yang 4 lagu yang sama sudah ada dalam shopping cart. Nasib tak tertekan ‘Check Out’.
There’s 4 Payment Method:
- Credit Card (with a minimum purchase of RM10 in a single transaction)
- MOL e-Points
- Maybank2U
- Reward Point (collected from the Gua website itself)
I chose Maybank2U since its the easiest for me.
After selecting my method of payment, like any other Maybank2U transaction, you’ll need to log on and pretty much just clicking next until you’re done with the payment. Tak la susah mana pun.
Once done with the payment, I was taken to the downloading page, in which I can choose to either download the song to my computer, or send to a friend (kira hadiah lah, :P). So thats it. It downloads to my computer (pretty decent speed juga), and ready to be played (tapi kena check player yang sesuai).
Basically, I like the whole idea, but of course there is a lot of space for future improvements. Alerts, compatibility and stuff.
I hated the fact that the page wouldn’t work properly in Firefox, and that the WMA format couldn’t be played on my Sony Ericsson phone when transfered. And also, at that price, maybe including album art in the package is not entirely inappropriate. But all in all, it was a good attempt to make buying music more practical.
I bought two songs, the first one when I was trying the website for the first time, and the second for this particular review. But I don’t think I’d be buying anymore music from the website anytime soon.
