Review: Napster + Creative Zen Vision M

[A790]

For all of you out there who don't know, Napster is a fantastic alternative to iTunes if you're looking to legally download music and put them on MP3 players. Napster works by charging you a set monthly fee ($14.95/mo) for access to pretty much as much music as you want, and it also allows you to transfer that music to compatible MP3 players. I have chosen to go this route as opposed to pay $0.99/song from iTunes and it's working out great for me.

The MP3 player I've chosen is the Creative Zen Vision M, a 30GB MP3/video player. It's a bit bigger than the iPods of today, but being compatible with Napster was all the pull I needed to switch over.

The MP3 player is fantastic- it sounds WAY better than my iPod and iPhone, and it only cost me $170. Plus, having 4,500 songs on it that I only pay $15/mo for is pretty sweet too.

Admittedly, there are some songs that you have to buy through Napster for $1.19 track to download, and you MUST pay $1.19/track to burn it to CD's. However, those songs represent less than 5% of their music library, and since I don't burn CD's, I see it as a non-issue.

If you're looking for an inexpensive, LEGAL alternative to iTunes, this combo is hard to beat.

[GoChris]

so what happens to your mp3s when you stop paying the monthly fee?

[sneek]

They don't work. I used to use this back in the day with my Dell DJ. I wasn't that huge of a fan. The audio quality is OK, most people probably wouldn't care. I used this a while ago, but I am guessing that the 5% used to be a bit bigger, as well as the fact that I don't like DRM protected music. I think you have to be on a computer with Napster to listen to the song that you downloaded. You really lose the portability of music.

[analbumcover]

I remember napster being the first P2P MP3 Sharing File Network.

I would never pay to download music.

I prefer to buy the CD and RIP than buy individual tracks.

Sure it ends up on the ipod either way but i'd rather have a hard copy that i can keep and use how i please

[A790]

It's all based on your preference. Since I operate my business online, and hene leave a lot of footprints, its in my best interests to operate as legally as possible.

You can have your Napster account linked to 3 different computers, so you can listen to your music at work, at home, etc. I haven't found a situation yet where I've run into limitations due to that.