SaulK’s views on Nokia’s Comes With Music
Posted on 30. Aug, 2009 by saulk in Gadgets, Tech, featured
For a long time I’ve been a pirate. Yes, I’ll admit to not buying music legally. The thing is, buying music from a physical store is a tiresome process. You’ve got to get in your car, fight the crowds in the mall and then once you actually get into the store you’re left having to deal with a sales attendant who can barely help you. Once you’ve bought the disc I end up ripping it and putting it on my PC/iPod/Phone/Music player and then the CD gets stored on my shelf for posterity. Simply put, buying a CD for me these days is akin to buying a hundred and fifty rand coaster. I tend only to buy the albums from bands that I really want to collect even though I mostly have downloaded that album off Bittorrent two weeks before release anyway.
Being a pirate doesn’t keep me awake at night but I certainly don’t mind paying for decent music and while I couldn’t care if Lars Ulrich has to fly in first class rather than his own private jet, I do feel pretty bad stiffing South African bands out of their money.
A few months ago, the Nokia Music Store was launched and at ten rand a track it was pretty reasonable. Other services go for about sixteen rand a track but the real appeal of the Nokia Music Store was that of buying an album (no matter how many tracks) for a flat hundred bucks. I’ve probably bought three albums and about ten tracks off the service and it’s been fairly excellent in that time.
This previous Thursday I was invited to the launch of the newest extension to the Nokia Music Store, a service called “Comes With Music”. Basically you buy either a Nokia 5130, 5530 or 5630 and you get unlimited music downloads on either the device or one computer that you initially set the phone up on. Considering you get access to over five million tracks on the Nokia Music Store for twelve months, this is worth the price of entrance. I’m not entirely sure of the monthly cost of the other two devices but the 5130 costs a mere R100 a month.
At the event we were given either a 5530 or 5630 to test for an entire year and I chose the touchscreen 5530. Now it only has a 2G Internet connection (there is wi-fi though) but the 5630 is a T9, candybar device which is something I personally don’t like. The touchscreen is a mere (compared to my N97) 2.9-inches but is actually the most responsive Nokia touchscreen I’ve ever used. Needless to say, this beats its predecessor the bigger, more feature-filled 5800 in almost all ways. While the device comes with a stylus I’ve been typing perfectly on its full on-screen keyboard with my fingers. I’m sure it would get tiresome typing like this while on the move but this is more of a touchscreen device issue than a problem with the phone.
While the phone is exceptionally capable it really comes alive with “Comes With Music”. I’ve had this phone for three days now and I’ve burned through about a gig of music downloads. If you consider that for as little as a hundred rand a month you’ve got access to unlimited music. I do actually think this is probably the most revolutionary service to happen to the music industry since the introduction of the CD. Combine “Comes With Music” with a program such as Shazam (that identifies a song just by hearing the audio) and you’ve got the ability to download any song you hear on the radio, TV show or even when you’re out at a party.
Do yourself a favour and get “Comes With Music” if you can, it’ll change the way you consume and enjoy music.
Related posts:
- Saul Kropman’s Nokia Music 5800 Xpress Review
- Nokia Launches the South African Music Store
- First Impressions of the Nokia N97
- Nokia 5800 XpressMusic review
- Nokia Music Store_ZA was there – The 2009 SAMAs
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Come on – get real. You are being ripped off paying R10 per track. As long as the music industry rips consumers off I will pirate music.
Why do I say we are being ripped off? Simple. Musica/ Look & Listen, etc sell a 14 track CD for R100 – or less than R10 per song. Now I buy a digital song off the internet and wipe out an entire chunk of the logistical chain – No disk(so no production costs), no retail outlet (so no rent), no sales staff (so no salaries), no shrinkage, no stock holding costs, etc, and then the music industry buys off “reporters” to make us believe we are getting a good deal!
Looking at Musica.co.za I see a CD costs between R150 to R180 so I don’t see what you’re on about?
Looking at the Apple iTunes store it’s 99 cents a track which roughly works out the same at 8 bucks at the current exchange rate. As such 10 bucks seems pretty reasonable.
The debate though is moot as we’re talking about the unlimited music downloads option which is frankly a brilliant service considering that it’s actually has a very cheap entry point.
You obviously havn’t been into Musica in a while. Standard cd price is around R169 these days. It’s still a good deal at R100 a cd, plus its the unlimited thing you should really be looking at. But whatever you’ll always find a reason to justify why everyone should do things your way. Which is funny cause they were doing these thing asking you if you wanted in, and you were saying no I don’t want in but I’ll take the spoils anyway. Whatever though. Bless yourself.
Now Jack, while you are dead on concerning the shorter (more profitable) logistical chain, I believe it was said that there is a flat rate of R100 a month… for as many albums as you like. Sounds good to me. Question is, how do profits get distributed to artists in this kind of market?
Jack, If people aren’t willing to pay 100 bucks a month for a phone, some free airtime, some free sms’s and 1 year unlimited music downloads I feel very sorry for the future of the music industry…
SaulK – (1) Long time since I bought a CD; you are right it is closer to R150. BUT my principle remains the same – how do you slash a huge chunk of the supply chain out of the cost structure and yet keep the costs the same(itunes cost model)?
Saulk (2) The argument is not moot as I have now bought a product that I am restricted to use on either one device (the phone you have been given as a freebee to punt) and one PC. Great – how do I transfer to my iPod or my phone gets nicked and I want to transfer the data to a new phone?
Bert – I would pay the artists using exactly the same cost model that allows Nokia to distribute unlimited tracks for R100 per month. As Saulk says, he has downloaded 2 cd’s plus a whole bunch of single tracks for R100 – therefore the music industry in some twisted way is actually agreeing with my contention that the consumer is being ripped of and that there is an alternative financial structure.
And finally – Dcb – I have no problem with paying for music, and will willingly pay to see a live act, buy merchanise, etc, but I have a serious problem with getting ripped off. And that gentlemen is the crux of my argument.
I want to buy a product at a fair price, and be allowed fair use of that product. Easy.