Sprint Music Store reviewed
posted Oct 31st 2005 12:30PM
While we have to give Sprint some cred for being the first US
carrier to offer a full-scale music store, with downloads available at one price to both your phone and your PC (the
service is similar to the "dual download" service recently
unveiled by UK carrier 3), we're not sure how many people are going to be willing to pay $2.50 per song just to be
able to play music on their EV-DO-enabled Sprint phone. Laptop Magazine took the Sprint Music Store for a spin, and,
for the most part, agrees. While the reviewer liked the convenience of being able to quickly download music to his
cellphone, and also appreciated being able to pause songs to take calls, he found the the PC process — which requires
redownloading and getting your license verified — frustrating and cumbersome. Sprint also doesn't let you use
downloaded songs as ringtones; you have to pay to download prerecorded ringtones separately. Nevertheless, if you've
got a song in your head and need to hear it on your phone immediately, there's now a way to do it, as long as it's a
major label track, you're a Sprint customer with EV-DO, happen to be within range of the service, and don't mind
handing over $2.50 for the privilege.
This is where USB cables and certain programs come in handy. My girlfriend didn't want to pay $2 for each 30-sec clip on her verizon phone. So now she's gotten more than enough use from a $20 cable.
Any song she can think of (well, rotate them because her phone only came with 5MB internal) is now on her phone.
My carrier/phone is cingular/s710a so I've got no problems getting ringtones for free. If only more people felt this way and force the carriers to cater to the consumer.
This sounds like a really good deal. Compared to the others, $0.99 does not sound like such a bad ripoff anymore.
All sprint customers together: Beeeee Beeeeee, please milk me! Please milk meeeee.
"This is where USB cables and certain programs come in handy. My girlfriend didn't want to pay $2 for each 30-sec clip on her verizon phone. So now she's gotten more than enough use from a $20 cable."
Seriously, wtf? I have a cable that I bought for $5 on Ebay that lets me transfer whatever mp3 files I want over to my phone. And I can use them as ringtones too if I like (in fact this is really the only way I do use them; I have an iPod to actually listen to). $2.50 per song and you can't even use them as ringtones - what a freakin' scam! Welcome to the wonderful world of DRM-funded greed, people.
Live free, use CD's and mp3.
#1 & #3 Amen.
I cant figure out what the deal is with being able to download your music via the carrier.
I have a Treo 650 and I just upload music and videos to my SD card. Set of phones from eBay for $4.99 and you have EVERYTHING in one package for $299.
Compared to US$12.00 for an import 12" vinyl single, $2.50 per track is cheap!
Mark my words: This service will fail. Too expensive, too cumbersome and wreaks of design by committee by people who do not understand the user experience.
What kind of moron will want to pay $2.50 PLUS air time (this is something they don't mention but DO charge) for a song that is of WORSE quality than that found on iTunes? The total cost of the song will be around $4!!! LOLL!! I would like to congratulate the first idiot to purchase such a song with all the limitations that come attached to it. Way to go Sprint, ure REALLY going to shake things up. LOL! When its not your thing, STAY OUT OF IT! Leave the legal online music business to those that pioneered it!
#3- Jeff
"Seriously, wtf? I have a cable that I bought for $5 on Ebay that lets me transfer whatever mp3 files I want over to my phone"
Either you didn't get my point, or you are commenting on the price of the cable. At any rate, $5 cable + $15 shipping = $20. And you are arguing the same point I was- so I guess it doesn't matter anyway.
There are references to 1000 songs on a 1GB card... er .... that's very very low quality. Apple talks about 4 minute average track lengths in their calculations...
4000 minutes on a card that sized is about 32kbps audio. No wonder they have a separate DL to the PC. This would really suck (48kbps would also really suck if they are talking about 3 minute tracks) on most earphones.
#7 - yeah the charge for Sprint Power Vision is understood to already be a part of your bill. it is $15 / month extra on top of your minutes and it gives you unlimited text and picture mail and access to websites.
but i do agree... DRM-funded greed is crappy! $2.50, hell no we wont pay!
“Sprint also doesn’t let you use downloaded songs as ringtones…”
Honestly, why do they even bother?
Screw it! I don't care about downloading to phone cause first, I'm not gonna to buy a new phone to work with it, second, I'm not paying $2.50 for a song! $2.50 is way overpriced! For $2.50 each song, I'd go buy the original CD, screw mp3s if it's for $2.50! I never used to pay for music, but after using iTunes, I don't mind paying since it's just easier and much more organized than having to find pieces of the mp3s online. Most importantly, I think $1 each song and $10 an album is perfectly priced for digital musics.
PS: I believe this service will fail too!
While I would entirely agree with your observations, and would almost never download a song for $2.50, fully encumbered with DRM when the going rate is $1 at Apple... or free without DRM, I actually might do it once in a while.
I can see myself with friends saying, "What was that tune?", "It was great." Then "Wait, I can get it right now." And the $2.50 would be trivial to me a the time.
I imagine teens and 20-somethings would have the above discussion far more frequently that I or you, and might use the service more.
Why pay a premium? Anytime, anywhere access to (someday) any song. That's worth a fair bit. I pay $1 for the song, and $1.50 for the anytime, anywhere part.
It's the same reason I pay $8 for a hot-dog in the stadium at a MLB game. I could have the same dog at home for 23 cents, but I pay the premium because it gives me the hot dog where I am, when I want it.
So while this wouldn't make Sprint my main store for music, it does mean Sprint may be one of my music vendors.
Meanwhile, as long as a song is about 5MB of data, does Sprint really want their wireless network to carry all the music we buy? It would bring down the network, so (just like EV-DO) they price higher and take a higher profit instead of creating volume.
I'm not decided on whether this is a good service and price or not. But I think it's too early to condemn it.
For $6 you can get the CD shipped from http://www.yourmusic.com/
For #9:
Sprint uses AAC+ at 32kbps for OTA download. This format at this bitrate is considered _perceived CD quality_.
yumm free 5 songs when you create your account...
Can some one tell me how to download via usb or bluetooth some of my music from my mac? My computer doesn't seem to recoginze when i plug my phone into it.