Comes With Music Comes With Few Details
We normally don’t cover S40 news here on Symbian-Guru because, well, it’s not Symbian or S60. However, yesterday’s news that Comes With Music has gotten a bit less fuzzy captured my attention. In case you missed it somehow, Nokia announced that the first Comes With Music device will be the 5310 XpressMusic and will be available exclusively in the U.K., through Carphone Warehouse. We already know that Comes With Music allows you to enjoy unlimited downloads through the Nokia Music Store for one year, through either your phone or your PC.
Despite the news, there are still 3 important things we don’t know about Comes With Music:
1. How much more is it going to cost? Pricing of the 5310 XpressMusic with Comes With Music wasn’t given, so we don’t know what the price-premium is yet.
2. When is it actually going to arrive? The press release simply states that it will be a hot Christmas item, but doesn’t give any further details as to when Comes With Music will actually be available. There is supposedly a pre-order list at Carphone Warehouse’ website, but I was unable to find it
3. What S60-powered handsets will offer Comes With Music? The 5310 XpressMusic uses Nokia’s S40 featurephone user interface, so we still haven’t a clue as to which S60-powered smartphone will be getting the musical treatment. Personally, my guess is the new Nokia N85, though I could be entirely wrong.
Unfortunately, the Comes With Music initiative is still rather useless information, as well, since the Nokia Music Store is still only available in a handful of countries. The rest of us are stuck with Amazon.com’s DRM-free shop, or other less legitimate sources to load up our music-enabled handsets.
One thing that most people seem to have missed is a small line at the end of the PR, as a note to editors:
Further details about Comes With Music will be announced at a Nokia event to be held in London on October 2, 2008.
So, my guess is that we can plan for new music-oriented phones to be announced on October 2nd in London. I’ve added this to the Symbian-Guru Events Calendar, as well, so you can easily keep up with things.
“Stuck with” Amazon’s DRM-free shop?
Even if Nokia had a music store here, I’d much rather be “Stuck with” Amazon. It’s fast, the quality is high, there are no licensing issues…
Shame on Nokia for launching a DRM based service in this day and age.
They probably had to allow DRM at the store to make up for the fact that people can download as much as they want…
…record companies aren’t just going to roll over for Nokia.