The latest and greatest handsets from Apple and Android respectively are vying for your wallet, but each offer a different experience/cost.

The Nexus 4 is undoubtably a cheap/great value handset. It costs over a third less than the iPhone. Yet the pain of ordering and receiving one is widely documented as painful and hit or miss. Many people who ordered on first day of release, still haven’t received their phone, and Google cant tell them when or where it is. The MD of Google UK has even apologised. Also, to sell a handset at such a low price , quality components in some areas are missing. If they can’t get the selling right, then the after sales service will also be fractured. I have experienced this when I tried to buy a Nexus 7 and kept receiving faulty units which became impossible to return and receive a refund.

The iPhone 5 is a work or art. It is also a mortgage when it comes to purchasing. But what is you get is a no holds bar piece of engineering excellence. However, unlike Google you have the best customer service experience, either online, via the telephone or in the bricks and mortar stores. Apple also provide training, both free and paid on all their devices so you get the most out of it. Also, if you buy in store, they help set it up so it’s ready to go. Superb for beginners. And then there is the sales. Even if its out of stock, you still get an estimation of delivery, which is normally accurate. This weekend Apple sold 2m handsets in China. Huge. By the end of this year, the iPhone 5 will be selling in over 100 countries. Just think of the logistics required.

So, question is would you buy a Nexus 4 or pay more for the iPhone 5 based on the experience from purchase to end of use ?

A month or so ago Google opened up its music service to other countries other than the USA.

I jumped with joy. I downloaded the software and started the procedure of uploading my 10,000 songs. Well what endured was a painfully slow upload along with Google’s server crashing. After 22 days non stop uploading my collection was all in place. Along the way I did curse with it taking so long. My thoughts for waiting so long was two fold.

Firstly, I would have my entire music collection in the cloud which would act as a backup. As Google don’t charge for the first 20,000 songs its a free backup. Also Google stream the music at a much higher bit rate than Apple and Amazon. I rip all my CDs at 320 bit rate, and this is the same rate Google use. Apple and Amazon are at a max of 254. Whilst that might not sound a big difference it actually does make a big difference. Instruments are clearer, in fact the whole sound spectrum improves noticeably.

I have been reluctant to move away from physical CDs as I like holding and then adding to my collection on the bookcase. It feels like you have something. However, sometimes I have downloaded the odd album or song. So as we download more, so does cloud storing of our media become more common.

So for the first time since that big upload, I’ve put being using Google Music non stop today. I am playing my entire collection in shuffle mode. And it’s just works. And my iPad’s memory has not been used to store any of the songs. Nor could it fit all 10,000 songs. So being able to stream my music at a high bit rate has been very enjoyable. If only the upload had been faster.

So long as you have access to unlimited internet you can have access to all your songs and play them. This in turns negates the need for huge memory sizes on tablets or phones for storing.

I do wonder what would happen if the internet got hacked. Sometimes local offline storage is simpler and safer.

Have you used or do you use a streaming service? Do you feel safe using it? Is if the future?