Hands on with Comes with Music

Rafe's been trying out Nokia's newest Music service offering. There may be some caveats, but overall he comes away very impressed.

At Nokia World 2007, in Amsterdam, the intial announcement of Comes with Music was slipped into a keynote (http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news/item/6357_Comes_with_Music-devices_with_.php). The general response was fairly muted, though I rember thinking it was potentially the most exciting ('revolutionary') of Nokia's service announcements. It certainly seemed to have the potential to shake up the music industry.

Fast forward today and Comes with Music becomes available to the public, in the UK, for the first time. So what's the verdict? Here's my impressions from hands on usage:

Comes with Music deliver what it promises - an unlimited music subscription bundled into the cost of a device.

The files downloaded via the Comes with Music service are encoded in Windows Media Audio format at 196 kbps, in common with purchased tracks from the Nokia Music Store. However the DRM properties are subtly different. There are no CD burning or transfer rights - Comes with Music downloads can only be copied to the Comes with Music device. Tracks purchased from the Nokia Music Store typically have around 5 CD burning rights and 20 or so mobile transfer rights.

If you want to burn Comes with Music tracks to a CD you have to buy them through the Nokia Music Store (at the full cost of 80p). This is a bit disappointing, but, to be fair, isn't really that big a stumbling for legitimate usage, given you can connect to most stereo via a line in from the 3.5mm audio jack that is standard on Nokia's music phones. Still it is another caveat that you need to be aware of when deciding whether to buy a Comes with Music handset.