Quickie review: Amazon MP3 Store
First impression: decent range, lower prices than iTunes, no DRM.
Beyond that, well, it “just works”. The interface is reasonable, the song-preview stuff uses an embedded Flash applet but is quite usable, the search stuff works, the web site is nicely responsive, and purchasing is easy.
The requirement to use their downloader application for album purchases is slightly annoying but it’s not difficult to understand why they’ve done that. I tried the Windows version and it worked, didn’t give me even the slightest bit of trouble. There’s an OS X version also available, and they say they’ll have a Linux one soon.
The downloaded files are 256kbps VBR MP3 and sound it. Apparently there’s some sort of fingerprinting in them, but whether that’s true or just something they’re saying to discourage piracy, who knows?
You’ll need a US billing address, but otherwise they aren’t checking the issuer of the credit card the way some online stores do so I was able to use my Australian credit card with no hassles.
Overall? This is a pretty good competitor to iTunes and nicely complements eMusic. When a Linux version of the downloader becomes available I can see us buying a reasonable amount of stuff from them.
Popularity: 41% [?]
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