My Media Mirror

Now the time has come, and Amazon will start the running back in the U.S. selling DRM-free music tracks in Germany. With discount prices Amazon wants to steal the market share leader iTunes.

At first glance, it does little, was that one buys in this case, no physical products like CDs or DVDs but only downloads. On the left side there are the usual navigation to zoom deeper into the various categories or even coarse filter to adjust price limits. In addition, you can download the top left-Toplists for albums and tracks to display.

Amazon's top albums list

This orientation in itself is really necessary, especially if you simply want to browse only once. If you know exactly what you want, the Amazon search works perfectly of course.

Overall, the iTunes Store does, however, much hipper, therefore, which is reflected in the usability and the Stöbnern. It appears that selection in the Amazon store is not to be so bad and the price can certainly be one or the other overlook tiny weaknesses.

If you want to download entire albums, for example, you need an additional program - the Amazon MP3 Downloader will-. Individual songs can also simply load on the other hand, the hard disk. You can uses the Amazon downloader then one select whether the songs should be in the library of the Windows Media Player, or incorporated into iTunes.

This is certainly quite conclusive, however, you must purchase at least the albums in two different finishes handle - search and purchase process will then take place on the website and download the Download Manager from Amazon. This is the case with the iTunes client solution definitely a little better resolved, especially since they also used as a multimedia player can be.

There are also small cuts at the trial hearing of the songs. In the song list this tiny player icons are available. But the arrangement of play, pause and Lautsärkereglern is distributed so that it should work better again - again, a plus for iTunes.

When price is a full comparison is not possible. Amazon waives a uniform pricing model and lures with opening offers. This reduces the transparency and clarity to the customer therefore recommended here in the future would be a unification. Prices for individual pieces of music would be situated 68-99 cents, with most of the songs will cost about 77 cents. If there are albums for opening in 2000 rates for under 5 €, but otherwise there is no real Preisgrneze up.

It can be concluded that Amazon has succeeded with its own MP3 offer a real competitor to iTunes. In principle, this could be the weight on the move download disposals, because for one user usually does not come from where the download, but how much this will cost. Through the seamless integration of "free" songs into iTunes can get over even small weaknesses in researching and browsing and handling the two surfaces.

via: SPON