Owners of the Lumia smartphones from Nokia have had access to a free Nokia Music service for some time in Europe, and it went live for U.S. Lumia users in September 2012. Today, the company has announced plans to offer an upgraded version of Nokia Music that will have a number of features for a price that"s extremely cheap compared to many similar services, including Microsoft"s own Xbox Music.
Nokia is calling the upgraded service Music+ and it is scheduled to roll out to Lumia users in the US and Europe sometime "in the next few weeks." While it will differ in each country, Nokia says the final price should be around $3.99 a month in the U.S. and €3.99 in Europe. By contrast, Microsoft offers Xbox Music for $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year.
For that price, Nokia Music+ subscribers can get unlimited downloads of songs which users "can swap as you wish." There"s no word yet on how many tracks will be included in Nokia Music+. It will also give users a way to download higher quality music compared to the free service and offer the option to download the tracks via WiFi to conserve mobile data traffic.
In addition, Nokia Music+ will have unlimited skipping of tracks, a way to view the song"s lyrics, and a web-based app that will allow users to listen to tracks via "PC, smart TV, or other connected screens." While we don"t know yet how big the song library will be for Nokia Music+, nor do we know specifics on the higher quality file versions you can get, the price of only $/€3.99 a month will certainly be tempting for Lumia users.
Source: Nokia blog | Image via Nokia