Music Download Site Reviews - Napster

Napster

v3.8, Tested Jan-July 07

The logo's the same, but the face behind Napster is no longer a college kid in a beat up baseball cap, it's a legitimate company. And this time you have to pay for the music, although at least your conscience can rest easy. You're no longer depriving starving artists like Metallica of their license fees.

Bottom Line

Napster's the best PC-based music subscription service I tested, and the one I've been using for the last several months. Try it free - 7-Day Free Trial

• Software and Interface – 5 out of 5
• Music discovery and selection – 4/5
• Value – 3/5
• Extras – 5/5
• Overall – 4.25

Summary of Options

• Napster - unlimited PC-based subscription - $9.95/month
• Napster To Go - unlimited PC and portable device subscription - $14.95/month
• Downloads - $0.99 per song

The Interface

Napster provides a highly intuitive interface for finding music, saving it to your library, buying it or burning it to CD. The download and install went smoothly and the software provides minimal interference with my other programs (although does seem to slow things down from time to time).

Napster quickly found the music on my c drive and cataloged it. As for finding new music to add to the library, you can browse by the standard criteria (genre, artist, album, song) or select custom music channels to be built around a specific artist or around your current library. I found this to be a great way to create a playlist without having to select individual songs, or to discover new music. If you like Pandora, this custom playlist is a nice option.

Browse music by genre

Get it To Go

If you want to untether your music from your PC, you either buy the track at $0.99, or upgrade to the To Go option for another $5 per month. Either way, I found it very easy to organize on Napster through an intuitive process for finding, listening to, filing, burning and buying music.

Share the Love

Want to share your music, with yourself or others? Napster makes it simple. If you have a work computer and a home computer, you can easily copy your library from one to the other (without having to transfer any files). If you have more than one MP3 player, you can copy your To Go subscription to each of them (up to 3). So in theory, you can have one subscription for the whole family, quite a deal. I find it very, very useful to have access to my home computer library at work and vice versa, rather than trying to remember what tracks I've listened to.

Copy library between computers

Copy to multiple portable music devices

The Extras

Napster's music selection and add-on features are on par with Rhapsody, the other leading music subscription service. You can also play from your computer to your home stereo with the purchase of a $30 cable. If you want to stream music rather than download individual tracks, you get your choice of 50 commercial free stations included in your subscription.

In trying to expand the social networking aspects of the site, Napster allows you to browse the playlists from friends or strangers to find music you like. Or you can download playlists from Napster editors. In theory, this is a good way to explore new music but in practice I had a hard time finding relevant playlists. Also note that your music collection is available for view by the rest of the Napster community. If you have bad taste in music, well, maybe you want to pick a user name that no one will recognize.

Custom Radio Station

Downside

Keep in mind that if you have an iPod, you should be looking at Rhapsody (for a subscription service) or iTunes (as a pay-per-download site). Napster's WMA music format does not allow it to be played on an iPod. Napster is neither the cheapest subscription ($10-$15/month) not pay-per-download service ($0.99/track)

I also had some file quality issues with some of the songs that I downloaded - perhaps 3 tracks out of 50-100. Not sure if that's Napster or my MP3 player.

Other Opinions

• CNET Editors - 7.8 (out of 10)
• CNET Users - 6.2 (out of 10)
• ePinions - 2.5 (out of 5, BUT alot of these reviews are from older Napster versions, circa 2003)

Napster To Go

If you have a compatible player, (see the Napster site for the updated list) then for an extra 5 bucks per month you can fill and refill your portable music device at will. Like the PC-based subscription, you can't keep the tracks once you cancel the subscription unless you pay per download. If you like to explore new music and frequently listen to music on the go, this is worth the extra cost. Napster To Go requires Windows XP or Vista. No Macs and no iPods

Get it Free

Napster gives you a 7-Day Free Trial, after which the fee is $9.95 per month of a PC based subscription and $14.95 for Napster To Go! , the portable subscription. (see our buying guide for the differences). At the time of this writing, Napster was offering a free 1 GB MP3 player with the purchase of a 1 year subscription of Napster To Go.