The company that started the P2P revolution has gone legit. TopTenREVIEWS Silver Award winning Napster comes in a very, very, close second to iTunes. With more than seven million DRM free songs, an integrated music player, media manager and universal device flexibility, it’s tough to find fault with the grandfather of music download services.
Napster is a great choice for those who own any brand of MP3 player, including iPod. They have recently changed their business model, shifting focus from a subscription based model to selling individual MP3 tracks and albums. Although they still offer the subscription service, all songs available for purchase on Napster are in an unrestricted MP3 format, making them compatible with all brands of MP3 players.
The only things keeping Napster of the #1 slot were the difficulties we had installing the media player and their library is just a smidge smaller (but no less substantial) than iTunes.
With more than seven million songs available in MP3 format, Napster has one of the largest DRM-free MP3 music stores on the internet. Napster’s library has something for everyone and you can find just about anything you are looking for.
There are 19 genres, including comedy tracks, Latin music and a children’s music section. They also have staff picks, radio stations to stream, and featured playlists compiled by Napster employees, musicians and actors. The compilation playlists created by Napster are fun, themed collections.
Napster offers all the typical ways to search for music including by artist, title, album and genre. Simply use the search bar at the top of the screen. We liked that Napster was able to find an artist’s name even if we spelled it incorrectly. All searches are sorted into tabs entitled respectively: Artists, Albums and Tracks.
Perhaps Napster’s most impressive feature is its collection of DRM free music. All MP3 tracks are encoded a 256 bit rate and compatible with all MP3 players and portable music devices including iPod and Zune.
Napster has also introduced Napster Mobile. Napster Mobile is an application that gives you the ability to download songs directly to your phone without paying per track. All downloaded songs are charged directly to your bill. You pay for your music when you pay your regular phone bill. AT&T and CellularOne are the two biggest carriers supporting this feature.
Napster includes all the features you’d expect to find in a typical music download service, including a media player and streaming radio. However, we found you have to import your existing music files manually.
Our favorite feature in the media is automix. Essentially, automix is just a streaming radio station, but the station is tailored to your tastes based on the artists and songs already in your library. Napster also gives you a list of other stations to listen to included with your subscription.
A unique feature we found with Napster is the Military discount. Napster has worked a deal with AAFES (Army Air Force Exchange Service) in which soldiers receive a 10 percent discount on track and album sales and a 30 percent discount on subscription services.
In the future, we’d like to see Napster spread its wings a bit and offer other digital media like audiobooks, podcasts, movies and television programs.
Like most music download sites, Napster requires you to register with the service before you can browse their library. Registration is free.
You will need to download the Napster media player to manage your purchased songs. Admittedly, we had some difficulty downloading Napster’s media player. The application insisted on changing our registry to automatically launch once Windows was started. This pretty much means Napster will be a permanent fixture in your tray (that small selection of programs that are always visible in the bottom right-hand corner next to your clock). Although most people won’t notice, we found this requirement to be annoying and unnecessary.
Napster has two music download options. You can purchase songs and albums for $.99 or $9.99 respectively, much like iTunes, or you can subscribe. They have two subscription plans: the basic plan is $12.95 and the “To Go” option is $14.95 per month. You can only transfer music to your MP3 player or cell phone with the “To Go” plan.
Both plans allow you to download as much music as you want while your subscription is active. Once you cancel, those songs will no longer play. Songs available with a subscription are protected WMA tracks with a 128 or 192 bit rate that will only play on certain MP3 players. iPod is not compatible with Napster’s subscription plans.
Napster includes a plethora of help options including email support, a user guide, FAQs and telephone support. We were able to easily find answers to all of our questions and concerns.
With more than seven million DRM free songs, you can’t go wrong with Napster. In our opinion, the only things holding this service back are a few quirky irritations including their insistence on changing our registry. Napster is ready to take over the music download world. However, they really need to include a few additional digital download features - at least get audiobooks and podcasts up there.
For a fun and exciting way to put your music downloads to use, be sure and check out our DJ Software review site.
