I’ve been trying MelOn for the past week or so. It’s a Korean subscription based music service. There are various plans available depending on what your needs are. I wanted to be able to stream full songs and download MP3’s that I can transfer to my iPod. The MP3 Plus package offered just that for a reasonable 6000 won a month (roughly £3, $6) for 40 MP3s or 10,000 won for 150 MP3’s. I got the MP3 40 package to try it out.

Firstly the Melon website is typically Korean so you need to view it in Internet Explorer and install anything it asks you too. So Mac users, like myself, have to boot up in Windows (assuming you have installed it) or use virtualization software. You have to download the MelOn player too, which again is only available for Windows.

Anyway once you are up and running it’s easy to search for artists and songs. There is a huge selection to choose to dig through from both major and indie labels. You can simply click a song’s name to stream it and hit download to get the MP3 (most songs are available in 128kps, 192kps and 320kbs formats). The MP3’s are DRM free too and so even if your subscription ends you can still keep the files. I transferred the MP3s out of Windows onto Mac OSX and synced them with my iPod. They played back as expected.

If you have a phone in Korea, MelOn is accessible on there too (your account is linked to your phone number). Through your phone you can download and listen to songs but have to pay any data charges. The PC MelOn player also lets you convert your downloaded MP3s to a phone friendly format and syncs them for you.

Overall I’m pretty pleased with the service. It’s annoying have to use Windows to access it but then again nearly every big Korean website or web service is the same - you have to follow their Windows / Internet Explorer standard. Being able to stream any song and download a few albums worth of songs for the price of a CD is quite a bargain.