I will only have one piece of electronics with me, My Google Nexus 7. In places that have WiFi (hotels...), will I be able to access my Google Play Music Library?
My Nexus 7 internal storage is very limited.
Posted by
Indianapolis
247 posts
From my experience, budget hotels in Europe rarely get good wifi signal in the rooms. Wifi is best in the lobby area usually. Its great for checking e-mail and doing a few routine things at the start/end of your travel day. Unless you plan to hang out in the lobby area when you listen to music I wouldn't rely on your phone for this particular activity. Maybe look into a small MP3 device like an ipod shuffle where you can store the music you've purchased on Google play for easy access anytime?
This one on Amazon can hold up to 2,000 music tracks and weighs just .8 oz
Posted by
New Paltz, NY
9109 posts
Maybe look into a small MP3 device like an ipod shuffle where you can
store the music you've purchased on Google play for easy access
anytime?
The tablet Denny is bringing along can do the very same thing. No reason to bring an extra device.
MP3s don't take up a lot of space. 250 songs won't take up any more than 1gb of space.
Posted by
Northamptonshire, England
33766 posts
On the same logic as Michael S mentions, I always use my phone when in my hotel rooms to listen to news and entertainment from England when cross the Channel.
I've haven't had in the last several years an unacceptable streaming lag or problems downloading audio. Even in lower priced hotels. Well, actually, especially at lower priced hotels - I always stay at lower priced hotels. I almost never average more than €100 a night including brekkie.
Some of the more expensive hotels I have stayed at on points have had a worse wifi coverage and throughput.
Always a good idea to avoid downloads and streaming at peak wifi times - breakfast and evening TV time - when many others have the same idea as you.
Posted by
OP
Seattle, WA
498 posts
I've lost at least two Sansa Clip MP players, on planes and in airport terminals. The Nexus 7 can store a lot on it, but for some reason, I only have the equivalent of about 12 albums of music on it. I'm not sure what else is filling up the 8 GB of memory, except apps...
Well, I won't count on listening to my Google Play Music (cloud) as it appears that Wi-Fi may be iffy, i.e., not available in hotel rooms themselves.
Posted by
Seattle, WA
71 posts
I've used Google Play Music in plenty of places without reliable internet access. You can download some of your music locally to your device. If space is limited, maybe just a few albums to tide you over until you're back online.
https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/1250232?hl=en
While we're on the subject of disk space, an 8GB device doesn't leave too much storage left after the OS and Apps. However, I think there's likely some extra space you can free up. I've always found this app useful in figuring out what's eating up disk usage:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.diskusage
Posted by
Los Angeles
4836 posts
I had very good experiences with mid-level hotels in Switzerland and France re: wifi. I stream Radio Swiss Classic and it was almost always fine. There's also Pandora and Spotify, don't forget.
Where you may run into trouble is with availability due to rights and licensing. People with Amazon Prime accounts are not happy to find that when they travel overseas, they often can't watch TV shows and movies that they could have accessed if they were home. The computer determines where your wifi server is located, and that often determines what you can hear and watch.
As a side note, your server will also determine some of your websites. So when I was in Switzerland, when I tried to go to Google I got Google.ch. When I was in Japan, I had the same issue with Yahoo. It's kinda frustrating but once you realize what's going on, you can work around it.
Posted by
Eastern Iowa, USA
8024 posts
Others have covered storage, yes, if you store music on your device...no issues.
However, while not actually answering your question directly, there can be issues with some access to accounts and streaming due to different licensing agreements. We could not access some things even in Mexico as well as some European countries because the purchase was in the US (a movie for example).
Streaming music services should still work, but if you have channels set up, they may not work if the content is not licensed. You may also have to reload apps to get a different version, but you should be able to get something.