Backspin is a traditional music player app for Android that works well on both smartphones as well as tablets with some more modern flare to it. Users can stream their music from their Dropbox accounts, and it’s super-easy to make a playlist whether or not those tracks are in the cold or on your device’s storage. Backspin offers users ways to unclutter large libraries and it also features an equalizer complete with bass boost and many more features that users looking for a comprehensive music player app on Android should find enjoyable. If you’re looking for a more traditional music player that also has some more modern features to it, then Backspin might just be the one for you, let’s take a closer look and find out.
First of all, listeners will need to download Backspin from the Play Store. Once launched, users will see that Backspin is giving users 30 days’ worth of premium features for free.
Backspin will automatically detect and organize any music that’s lying around on your phone, but should you add any more or want to rescan the library, users can easily do that from the settings menu, where all sorts of other tweaks can be found.
Here’s a look at what my library looked like once first generated. For whatever reason, the album names – as well as some song names – ended up with a mixture of capital and lowercase letters in their names.
We can also see that some of my albums were missing artwork, but finding artwork with Backspin is refreshingly easy and takes only a few moments if that to find the right artwork.
Viewing an album (or playlist) results in a clean look with a good font as well as some quick options accessible from the overflow icon beside each track, this makes creating playlists and adjusting the now playing set super-easy, too.
Speaking of now playing, Backspin offers users a little more info than other apps out there do, that’s a given.
Users can easily drag and move tracks around using the icon to the left of the track name and delete them using the X mark to the right. This is a really efficient way of doing things, and again it makes creating playlists super-simple. Speaking of which, creating a playlist from scratch is really easy, and it all starts off with a name:
Listeners can add albums or tracks to their playlist while viewing their library from any view, and removing songs and reorganizing them is really easy as well.
One of the things that users who would want a dedicated music player like this would do is meticulously organize all of their music – I know I do – and Backspin neatly caters for those users with a simple folder view, which not only matches the overall look and feel of the app, but gives users the exact sort of view that they’re looking for.
Speaking or organization, users that deal with their own ripped CDs or content downloaded will know that organizing ID3 tags and such can be a pain. Backspin includes a simple, easy-to-use and comprehensive tag editor that’s accessible pretty much whenever users want.
I’m a big audio nerd, with multiple pairs of headphones adorning my desk and too many headphone amps than any one person seriously needs. Even still, I’ve never been one to use aftermarket or third-party music apps, mostly because I have a DAP for this sort of thing and I love Spotify’s discovery features. Having said that, Backspin seems to have changed my mind. While I felt the interface was sometimes difficult to read with a less than bright font, everything else about this app is a joy to use. Despite the strange bug with the upper and lowercase letters, it neatly found and organized all of my content and creating my dream playlist when playing Basketball is finally something I can do without jumping through any hoops or anything like that. Adding whatever albums or songs you want to a playlist is super-simple and removing tracks and re-ordering them is just the same. For an app that’s incredibly straightforward and easy to use, it’s also fully-featured and comprehensive in its approach to offline music, and those with deep Dropbox accounts and unlimited data can even stream from their personal cloud if they wanted to.
Ratings
- Speed (4/5) – Backspin found all of my music nice and quickly, and the app always ran smoothly in my experience.
- Theme (4/5) – The dark theme fits in well with Android, and everything is neatly laid out, but some better font sizes and brighter fonts would be an improvement.
- Features (5/5) – Backspin does not claim to do anything magic or groundbreaking, and it doesn’t. Instead, it makes finding and listening to music either on or off your devices a real joy and makes the art of crafting a playlist a refreshingly straightforward endeavor.
- Overall (4/5) – These sort of apps might only appeal to those with lots of music and lots of storage, but with Dropbox support as well as excellent playlist features, there’s more than enough on offer to take this above other offerings out there.
Pros
- Doesn’t just work with offline music, as it works with Dropbox accounts as well.
- Excellent playlist features that are some of the best out there for users looking to create their own pieces of art to enjoy wherever and whenever.
- Great tag editor and handling of album artwork with minimal hassle or fuss whatsoever.
- Simple and comprehensive interface is refreshing and easy to navigate.
Cons
- Support for the likes of Google Drive, OneDrive and other cloud storage services would be nice to see.
- More consistent font sizes throughout different views would be nice to see and easier on the eye.
All-in-all, Backspin is a simple, yet fully-featured approach to what an MP3 player app should be on Android. It gives users that want to remain in control a folder view as well as a tag editor and those casual users get a simple and easily-navigated view of their libraries. On top of that, Backspin is one of the best apps out there to create a playlist, it’s simple and quick to create something that you really want to enjoy, and it can help connect listeners with their music a lot more once again.