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Walmart Music Downloads Review
- Tracks from Walmart Music are paid for on a per download basis
- You must sign up for a free account before you can download anything
- The cost of downloads are as follows
- Individual songs - $0.94
- Albums - (mostly) $9.22
- Download DRM free MP3 encoeded tracks
- Download individual songs at $0.94!
- Over 2 million tunes in the music library
- Top 10 lists from every genre
- Listen to samples of any tune
- Free download manager software
- Give music download gift cards
- MP3s are encoded at 256 kbps
- Burn to an unlimited number of CDs or copy to unlimited music players
- Compatible with Zune and iPod
- Create custom mix CDs Walmart will ship to you
- Regular discounts on downloads
- New songs added every day
- Only compatible with Windows and Internet Explorer
- Save on MP3 players through Walmart's web site
- Only provides edited versions of songs
The no-frills superstore giant Walmart now offers a music download service as an extension of its web presence. As you might expect, the service is certainly no frills, but does offer some of the cheapest prices around. However, for the most part it's a good service with only one or two points which let it down. Let's start with the good stuff though.
Firstly, we really liked the Walmart music website. It's really cleanly laid out and only provides you with the information you request - not like some other services (cough...Amazon.) who bombard you with recommendations and adverts while you try and download your favourite songs. Recommendations are still there, but conveniently kept on a separate tab which you can click on if you want, but otherwise don't have to bother with. This is a refreshing change, especially given that Walmart has a huge website filled with products that they could be trying to shove down your throat at any opportunity.
Music wise, Walmart has an extensive library on offer. Not quite as big as some of its competitors, but still more than enough to keep you entertained and in touch with the latest releases. The one quibble we had with the music selection on offer is that only edited versions of tracks are available. These are the versions edited by the record companies to remove any offensive material for radio and so that they can be sold in shops without the "Parental Advisory Recommended" sticker. This is fine if you want a nice safe site for your kids to use, but a bit frustrating for the rest of us who would like the opportunity to choose whether the occasional use of the 'A' word or the 'F' word offends us.
Like many download services, Walmart does not offer a player, but provides download manager software to help download your tracks. This is fairly standard stuff and does everything you would expect - adds tunes to your 'My Music' folder and also handily creates a Walmart playlist within iTunes if you have it installed. It's only required if you want to access the download store through a web browser; you can also access the store through the premium services tab from within Windows Media Player. Both methods provide a similar interface but using Windows Media Player sends downloaded tunes straight to the Media Player library.
This is where we come to the main problem we had with the Walmart music store: compatibility. Granted, this is a no frills service, but in this day and age not being compatible with some of the major operating systems and browsers just doesn't cut it. First off we tried to visit the site using the Firefox browser and were politely informed that unless we would care to use Internet Explorer Walmart could not guarantee that the site would work correctly. On using Internet Explorer to access the site we were then informed that we had better be using Windows because neither Linux nor Mac OS are supported. Apparently Walmart are working to make the service compatible with a wider range of systems but it might be too little too late.
Regarding Digital Rights Management (DRM):
all tracks downloaded from the Walmart Music store are DRM free MP3 files. This means you can copy them to unlimited portable players and burn to unlimited CDs. As is pretty much the norm for downloads these days, tracks are encoded at high quality 256 kbps.
So is it good value for money? Well,
Walmart offers pretty much the cheapest prices we have seen for mainstream music downloads. You have to sign up for a free account before you can buy, but this is easy to do. After that individual tracks come in at $0.94 and albums generally around $9.22. Even though that's only about five cents saving per track compared to the other major players, it's still a saving if you plan on buying a lot of music.
Walmart is exactly the type of service you would expect from a no-frills superstore. It is functional, simple and basic. We enjoyed the simplicity of the site, but were extremely disappointed at its lack of compatibility. However, Walmart does offer some of the cheapest prices around so if you want to save a few cents this is the service for you.
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