Feature Articles

Sony Ericsson PlayNow plus - Swift Unlimited Music

By Seow Tein Hee - 23 Apr 2009

Comparison & Conclusion

The Competition

Unlimited music downloads has been in the market for quite a while. One of the more prominent ones that have recently reached our shores is Nokia's Comes with Music service, working in tandem with its own Nokia Music Store. In relation, how does Sony Ericsson's PlayNow plus service measure up? Here's a quick summary of what you should know about both services:

Sony Ericsson PlayNow plus and Nokia Comes with Music
Service/Category Sony Ericsson PlayNow plus Nokia Comes with Music
Type
  • Mobile-centric
  • PC-centric
Format
  • Mobile: eAAC+ (24kbps), AAC+ (48kbps)
  • PC: WMA (192kbps)
  • WMA (192kbps)
Digital Rights Management
  • Yes
  • Yes
Side-loading
  • No
  • Music tracks downloaded separately from mobile and PC
  • Yes
  • Sideloading utilizing Nokia Music PC client and Windows Media Player
Service period
  • 12 months
  • Offers 200 DRM-free MP3 tracks to keep, based on most often played song on device
  • 12 months
  • All downloaded DRM tracks on mobile device and PC for keeps
Renewal
  • Possible renewal of PlayNow Plus service with current device
  • Requires new purchase of another Comes with Music device
Tied to Mobile Service Provider?
  • Yes, Singtel.
  • No.
Price
  • Sony Ericsson W705 - $298 with Singtel iOne Plus, $198 with iTwo Value and $98 with iTwo Plus (all based on 2-year subscription plans)
  • Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (Comes with Music) - S$798 (no contract)

From what we've seen, PlayNow plus has some downsides. With the omission of side-loading and the inability to send songs from your mobile device to your PC, it does make your music collection in somewhat of a disarray. But with a mobile-centric service such as PlayNow plus, chances are, you'll spend less time listening to the songs you download on your PC client, and spend more of it with your mobile device.

Sharing the same 12 months service period as Comes with Music from Nokia, we explored what happens after it expires. As much as some might love the fact that they are still in possession of all the songs they downloaded from the Nokia Music Store over the last 12 months, there's the DRM issue that hampers transfer of your music tracks between devices. On the record label front, this does protect their intellectual property rights, and prevents piracy. Consumers will have a mixed reaction over this, especially since Sony Ericsson managed to strike a deal that allows you to keep 200 DRM-free tracks at no extra cost. But this comes, at the price of losing all the songs that you've downloaded over the 12 month period, on both your mobile device and your PC client.

And again, when we look at the service expiration, the PlayNow plus service shines in another aspect: renewal. Sony Ericsson has stated that once the 12 month period is over, consumers have a choice of renewing the PlayNow plus service, back on the same mobile device. Comparing this to Nokia's current stance that a new device has to be purchased to enjoy another 12 months of Comes with Music, this comes in as one of the most favorable points for Sony Ericsson. A side note here is that the PlayNow plus is only available with Singtel's mobile plans (at the moment at least), which is unlike Nokia's mobile service provider agnostic Comes with Music service.

While online music stores are plentiful, having one that integrates seamlessly with your music phone is still pretty rare. Both Sony Ericsson and Nokia have made the move into the unlimited music download scene with the introduction of both PlayNow plus and Comes with Music. While we feel Sony Ericsson has a better service, it's not by much considering its set of cons. In the end, it's really a toss on the consumer's end depending on what aspects are more important to them and how they prefer to manage their audio. What we can say is that the competition is definitely heating up, and our fingers are just as crossed if we will ever see the launch of Apple's iTunes Store in the region. With that, we're hoping for even better service offerings and hopefully shift more cons out of the list from each provider.

In the meantime, that's all we have for now, but do check out our June issue of HWM, where we'll be giving you a more in-depth look at the various music phones and music stores in the market.

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