Comes with Music for less on 5310, also on N96
Published by Rafe Blandford at 11:50 UTC, January 14th 2009
Nokia's subscription music service, Comes with Music, seems to be struggling to pick up momentum. The major problems are around educating users in the details of the offer and the limited availability in terms channel availability and handsets. However worthy of note is that Carphone Warehouse has reduced the price of the Nokia 5310 Comes with Music Edition to £82.18.
The tracks downloaded with Comes with Music will only work on the Comes with Music handset and on your PC. In the case of the £82 5310 it does rather lend itself to a PC only option - you can eBay the phone for around £60 which means, in effect, you can get unlimited downloads for your PC for about £30 for a year. Given you keep the tracks even after the subscription expires that's potentially very good value. It's probably not what Nokia has in mind, but even so... Of course opting to keep the 5310 is a viable option too; it's a decent back up phone after all.
It is still early days for Comes with Music, but, thus far, is seems to have failed to capture the imagination of consumers. One issue seems to be explaining the proposition to people; because its a fairly radical departure from previous offerings there is an element of its too 'good to be true'. Explaining the offer to the typical feature phone buyer, where service usage is still relatively low, is not a straight forward proposition. Clearly DRM and licensing issues will be a concern for some, but this is more likely to prevalent amongst higher end users than those looking to buy a handset like the 5310.
A more significant concern is lack of availability in terms of both distribution and handsets. Currently Comes with Music is only available in the UK on a small number of handsets through limited distribution channels. I think it unlikely that many consumers will go out of the way to buy the service (i.e. they will not change where and how they buy a handset, but, if offered the option, would be interested).
Outside the 5310 (only available through Carphone Warehouse and the Nokia store there is the Nokia N95 8GB, which can be bought on a contract through Carphone Warehouse or direct from UK operator 3. Nokia did recently add the Nokia N96 to the Comes with Music line up, but it is currently only available SIM-free from the Nokia store. Until we see Comes with Music on more operators and on more handsets then its uptake is going to be limited.
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News Discussion
Tzer2
From a technical point of view, is there anything to stop them offering CWM as a post-retail add-on for any compatible handset?
Rafe
No. However the phone must have the right DRM support, which, I suspect may be a limiting factor (i.e. this part of WM DRM may not be fully implemented on all handsets). I would have thought anything running FP 2 and above would be OK though.
I think this is the one thing they could do that would give it some immediate traction.
Of course one conspiracy theory suggests Nokia may be re-doing some of the deals with labels to keep costs etc. down. There are some suggestions, at certain usage levels, that CwM is not a fixed cost for Nokia. Once it is a fixed cost they can really start to push it.
Tzer2
That's an interesting point about costs. Maybe Nokia are deliberately restricting CWM to just a few handsets in one country because they want a better idea about what the economics would be in the real world before they commit to it fully.
Williamoni
I noticed the price reduction and popped in to my local Carphone Warehouse and purchased one of these. I'm using the 5310 like an iPod - I bought the docking thing for it that Carphone Warehouse are selling and the 8Gb micro SD card and I'm away, downloading music from the Nokia music store like a man possessed.
I'm not going to use the 5310 as a phone - I'll carry on with my 6120 until I can make my mind up what to go for next.
All those songs where you couldn't quite justify buying the album years ago are now available for free - it's a great deal in my view.
The Music Store needs a bit more work from Nokia though. It takes ages to load up and the search facility needs refining. For example type 'Police' and you get an exact match with an obscure (in my opinion) recording on Hellenic Records. Fair enough but what about the 'close matches'? The Police is there in the list but you have to scroll past thirty-one other suggestions, with the top one being The Band of the South Australia Police. They probably rock but I was looking for the relatively well known band called The Police. I should admit that typing 'The Police' works first time.
Anyway smallish quibbles and so it's back to the downloading for me.
Take a look take a look take a look at the kids on the street
No they never miss a beat no they never miss a beat
Never miss a beat never miss a beat beat beat beat
Tzer2
Quote:
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I'm using the 5310 like an iPod
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I'm amazed this doesn't happen more, there are some very cheap phones out there which act as excellent music players, and have similar price tags too.
Maybe people don't realise you can use a phone without a sim card nowadays?
Williamoni
Tzer2 - probably that's right.
For me the fact that I can dock the phone and get it charged up whilst it's playing the music is great. In that sense it's similar to the myriad iPod speakers which are available these days.
The thing is that people need easy solutions. Speak to normal mobile users about getting music onto a micro SD card and you can see their eyes glaze over just as you're finishing the first sentence.
matchstick
Anybody got any thoughts on whether I can buy one of these 5310s but use the CWM with the 5800 I have on pre-order (and sell the 5310 on for whatever I can get for it)
Williamoni
Matchstick - I doubt it but Rafe would be better placed to answer.
Tzer2
Matchstick, I would guess that Nokia hasn't decided what to do about CWM's licence terms yet.
It all depends on how they can make money from the service, whether they can make a profit from selling CWM subscriptions alone or whether they have to bundle it with a phone.
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