Music Download Site Review - Yahoo

Yahoo Unlimited Review

July 2007

Yahoo was later to the game that Rhapsody or Napster, and seems to have caught up. Where earlier Beta versions of the software were criticized in professional reviews for technical glitches, now Yahoo is on par with the bigger players.

The Bottom Line

Along with Napster, Yahoo Music Unlimited is in the top 2 PC-based music download subscription services. And if you pay upfront for a year, it's half the cost. Strongly recommended - 14 Day Free Trial

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

Service Summary

Yahoo offers 3 flavors:

• Yahoo Unlimited - PC based, all you can eat subscription service
• Yahoo Unlimited To Go - PC + portable media device, all you can eat subscription service
• Pay-per-download

Pricing

Price is Yahoo's clear advantage. Yahoo charges only $6.99 per month for the base Yahoo Unlimited or $11.99 per month for the To Go service. This already makes Yahoo the cheapest. But then you can start piling on the discount. $60 per year ($5/month) for the Unlimited service with an annual commitment and $120 per year ($10/month) for the To Go service. At the time of this writing, Yahoo was even offering 2 years for the price of one if you paid using a Mastercard - Click here for the promotion - but to use this discount you forfeit the 14 Day Free Trial. Oh, and if you want to buy the songs individually, it's only $0.79 for subscribers (as opposed to the standard $0.99 for non-subscribers). Note that you are charged upfront for Yahoo for the full year commitment.

With these kinds of price incentives, you owe it to yourself to try Yahoo. As with the other services, there is a Free Trial.

Yahoo Unlimited Review

Since Yahoo is the cheapest of the lot (vs. Rhapsody, Napster and MTV Urge), do you get what you pay for? In a word, no. Yahoo is on par with these competitors and excels with some nice add-on features. Yahoo bought MusicMatch and has incorporated some of the features from MusicMatch's jukebox. The download was quick and easy and didn't require a restart of my computer. The software scanned my computer for music in order to build the library, and found nearly 4,000 tracks in the time that I listened to one Beastie Boys song.

The software layout is very clean, a nice change from MTV Urge/Windows Media Player. Basic jukebox controls (and even a mixer) sit on top. The left toolbar allows you to switch between the Yahoo Unlimited store, your music library, streaming music channels, CD and playlists. The center pane (when you have your library active) allows easy sorting by track, CD and artist. A nice touch is an icon next to each track which shows whether you have the rights to burn this to CD. The Search feature works well, especially if you have a large music collection.

The interface

Switching over to the music store, the layout is again clean with the ability to search artists, albums, tracks, members or playlists. From the artist page, you can play a list of their top songs, play, download or buy the album or individual tracks with simple icons.

Success!

Yahoo instantly recognized my Creative Zen, circa 2004, with no firmware upgrades, no computer restarts. I'm transferring music to my MP3 player in seconds.

Extras

• At 192 Kbps, Yahoo has the highest bit rate/sound quality
• 150 radio stations
• The integration with Yahoo Messenger allows sharing of playlists (a standard feature among leading music download services) but also recommendations based on people whose tastes you floow
• The ability to stream music by WiFi to a network media player so that (with the right device) you can listen on your stereo rather than your computer
• The option for parents to screen out tracks with explicit lyrics

Yahoo Unlimited To Go

Before signing up for the To Go option, check the list of Compatible music devices from the registration page

Free Trial -

14 Days, after which you are automatically charged the annual fee (write a note on your hand!) Click here to activate the Yahoo! trial.

System Requirements

Yahoo! Unlimited To Go requires Windows XP or Vista. No Macs and no iPods