Rhapsody Downloads - The Real Deal?Click here to get a free 14-day trial of Rhapsody
The Rhapsody In the interim, the Rhapsody downloads service became known as "RealRhapsody"; however, this led to confusion with RealNetwork's seperate music store that allows its own downloads. So, the term was reverted to "Rhapsody" shortly thereafter.
What Do You Get With Rhapsody Downloads?If you compare the Rhapsody downloads interface with that of iTunes or Napster, Rhapsody's offers less options, but is very concise and easy to navigate.You will find the Play/Stop/Rewind/Cue/Pause controls on the top left in a circular fashion. The search box, located on the upper right, is not as elegant as Napster's much less iTunes', but is of sufficient quality to do its job. You can easily access the library and playlists on the the right. The current "Mixer", located at the bottom left contains all the tracks in queue to play momentarily. Unlike Napster's mixer (which does not have a name), when you close the program, the tracks on the mixer will be saved. Not so with Napster's. Before closing Napster's program it is essential to manually save the track first into a playlist before you can access it later. The "Albums for You" option is unique to Rhapsody. Based on the tracks that you have played recently, they will offer you album selections from artists containing music of a genre similar to the music you have most recently listened to. When you first sign up with Rhapsody downloads service there is a 14-day free trial. With this you get unlimited downloads and streams, hence the name "Rhapsody Unlimited". After the trail is finished, you can do one of three things:
With the Rhapsody To Go service, brands hosting compatible portable mp3 players are iRivers, Creative Zen, Dell DJ, Gateway, and Samsung. NOTE: the Apple iPod is not compatible with Rhapsody or any other digital music service (other than Apple's iTunes). If you have an iPod and wish to learn more about iTunes, then you can read the full review of iTunes here.
The Best Time To Use Rhapsody:The Rhapsody downloads service gives you an opportunity to store not only songs that you've downloaded, but songs that you have streamed via their Music Store.Note that you can also stream entire songs from Napster with their regular service. Nonetheless, what is quite amazing in Rhapsody's case is that the stream quality is so good on EVERY track that it almost seems like the song is actually stored in you computer! You won't get that stream quality with Napster. Remember a few years ago when you had to wait several minutes until you finished downloading a track, before you had a chance to listen to the entire song? With the Rhapsody downloads, once you've searched and found the song, the song will usually play instantly once pressing the Play function. NOTE: if the song does not play instantly there will be a triangle with a "!" in it. In this case you will need to press the "+" sign which will automatically download or add the song to its Music Library - called "My Library". You can then use their easy search tool to find your song. The Rhapsody downloads service may be used as an alternative to Napster. The Rhapsody service may turn out to be cheaper than other legal digital music services depending on how many songs you want to stream download or burn. Remember, if you downgrade to Rhapsody 25 after the free trial, the service is free. No other music downloads service offers something in similar fashion to Rhapsody 25. Keep in mind that to burn any song to a CD there is always an a la carte fee such as with any other legal digital music downloads service. In Rhapsody's case, the fee is at least $0.79, although most often it is $0.89 ($0.99 with Rhapsody 25). Lastly, if you want to listen to one of the many radio stations, the quality of the songs on the stations is much better than the quality of that in Napster's. The Worst Time To Use Rhapsody:In the rare instance there are some weird feedback noises with some of the streams. However, this has nothing to do with the actual tracks or streams themselves, but rather the computer connection/ CPU activity at the moment. Play that similar track again, and you most won't likely get the feedback. Otherwise, the songs in the Rhapsody downloads service sound extremely good and the disadvantages are the same as for Napster. The main one being the songs are not compatible with iPod. Also some songs, although very few, will cost you an a la carte fee whether or not you have a paid subscription.Click here to get a free 14-day trial of Rhapsody
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