DailyTech - Nokia's First "Comes with Music" Phone to Launch in October

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Gadgets Nokia's First "Comes with Music" Phone to Launch in October
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - September 22, 2008 11:35 AM

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10 comment(s) - last by Ardan.. on Sep 22 at 4:14 PM

First Nokia handset will be offered exclusively in Britain at Carphone Warehouse

Digital music is a booming business these days with consumers. Rather than owning a physical music disk that has to be stored, users want the convenience of simply downloading tunes direct to their portable devices. Apple has proven that the pure digital delivery format works wondrously with its iTunes store.

Nokia is looking to pry customers away from iTunes with a new music phone that offers music lovers all the tracks they want for a full year. After the year is up, owners are allowed to keep the tracks permanently and legally. Reuters reports that Nokia is set to launch its free music phone on October 17 in Britain via Carphone Warehouse.

The Nokia Comes with Music bundle will include the phone itself and all the music users can download for a full 12 months. At the end of the 12-month period, the user gets to keep the music downloaded over the year.

Carphone Warehouse will be the exclusive retailer for the first model in the Comes with Music line. DailyTech first reported on the Nokia comes with Music program in December of 2007. Three of the largest music publishers in the world are onboard with the plan including -- Universal, Sony BMG, and Warner Music Group. Other smaller music firms are participating as well.

Reuters quotes analyst David MacQueen saying, "Comes with Music and other bundled services, should they succeed, offer a lifeline to the music labels which have seen revenues decline sharply in the digital age."

Nokia also told Reuters that it expects other telecom providers to sell Comes with Music devices as well. What remains unclear with the program is after the first year if owners will be able to renew the yearly all you want music deal and if so what the cost will be. Nokia has not commented on what cut of the device sales the music publishers will be receiving.

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Why bother!

By fijillian on 9/22/2008 12:28:03 PM , Rating: 2

Music off of iTunes is cheap anyway. Unless they pirce it lower that online offerings who cares.

RE: Why bother!

By Fronzbot on 9/22/2008 12:49:33 PM , Rating: 1

What? 99 cents for low quality mp3 is cheap?!? Until they start releasing in lossless WAV or FLAC, iTunes is NOT cheap my friend.

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RE: Why bother!

By Ardan on 9/22/2008 4:14:50 PM , Rating: 4

I always hear people say that, and I think that is too harsh. I wouldn't necessarily call it low-quality mp3, especially since AAC corrects many of the massive shortcomings of MP3 (not to mention that it is part of MPEG2 and 4, not 1 & 2 like MP3). The quality is acceptable, especially when the song you are looking for is one of the 256k, DRM-free tracks for 99 cents. I like very good sounding music as well, and I know that FLAC is great, but I am with the multitude of other people that just don't really need to buy songs in a lossless format online. I especially don't go for that since there's generally a price premium (some stores charge $19.99 for an album) over regular ones.

Before any audiophiles decide to get hostile towards my opinion (as they predictably would), put down your torches and pitchforks because I readily acknowledge how great files sound from FLAC, etc. Its just that, when I play the music on my headphones, through an optical connection to the receiver in the next room or to the Klipsch ProMedia Ultra 5.1 speakers my PC uses, the quality difference is very negligible. For **me**, and I know i'm not alone in this regard, saying that I need to exclusively use lossless because of the huge quality difference is the equivalent to people at work telling me that they NEED Alavert because its better than Claritin (nevermind that they are the same drug).

Until the prices for lossless music comes down online, it is not any cheaper to me than just buying a lossy MPEG4-based song from another store. I do encode CDs I already have into FLAC, so its not like I don't acknowledge the usefulness of the format or just dismiss it as nonsense. I just don't want to pay $20 for an album :). It is very cool how some of them encode them in 5.1 surround when it is lossless, though. That is very nice.

Anyways, I said my opinion. Off to work! You people have a good day.

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RE: Why bother!

By Hare on 9/22/2008 1:01:42 PM , Rating: 2

Really? Think about the value proposition. If you buy 100 songs a year (~7 albums) you have just saved 100$. Most people buy a lot more. With this deal you can download all the music you want which means that you don't have to think if you want to spend 10$ for a CD, just download it. It's "free". This means that if you download a CD a week you save ~520$ in a year compared to buying the tracks from iTunes.

I think this is something that many people will value quite a lot. Think about all the kids who want unlimited music downloads...

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RE: Why bother!

By Hakuryu on 9/22/2008 3:52:34 PM , Rating: 2

Itunes... never would buy a song I could only play on one device. Bet this phone deal is the same thing... only plays on that phone.

I got a Sansa MP3 player with a free year of music from Rhapsody for $150 total ($135 year for Rhapsody, but came free with player). Of course I don't get to keep the songs after a year, but I bet $135 or free if I find this deal again will be better than any phone/music combo deal.

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With or without DRM?

By fibreoptik on 9/22/2008 11:45:24 AM , Rating: 2

I bet it's the former, judging by the list of "signers-on" (Universal, Sony BMG, and Warner Music Group).

If that's the case: more of the same crap, not interested/no thanks.

RE: With or without DRM?

By Denigrate on 9/22/2008 12:10:36 PM , Rating: 2

DRM = who cares. It'll take some motivated hacker 24 hrs to come up with a way around it.

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RE: With or without DRM?

By fibreoptik on 9/22/2008 12:30:41 PM , Rating: 2

The thing is: we shouldn't have to wait for someone to hack something that we are already told that we own so that we can use it in whatever way we like.

DRM sucks and it needs to stop. Companies like Sony/BMG can eat shit and die. I will never subscribe to their DRM-laden schemes, no matter what sort of "gift-wrap" they come packaged in.

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