Nokia Music+ Offers Premium Version For $3.99 In Hopes To Compete With Spotify

I will be honest, I haven’t checked out Nokia’s streaming music service yet, but I will shortly after writing this. Instead of the completely free version, Nokia now has launched a price under-cutting premium version of the service for $3.99 (I pay $9.99 for my Spotify subscription).

According to Nokia Music’s official blog:

Enjoying Nokia Music on your Lumia, and want more of it? You’re in luck. Nokia today announces Nokia Music+, which brings a slew of new and richer options for a low monthly subscription fee of €3.99/$3.99.

“This is for people who care enough about music to pay something for more quality and choice, but don’t want to pay €9.99 monthly.”

SHOTS FIRED! I hope the folks at Spotify are paying attention.

So what do you get?

Unlimited skips. Whether you like to skip from track to track, or just want extra control over what you hear. There’s no stopping you with Nokia Music+.

Unlimited downloads. The free service allows you to download up to four Mixes (each of which contains hours of music) and play them without an Internet connection. The paid service removes this limit – you can download a massive supply of offline music you can swap as you wish.

Higher quality. We were surprised by the high quality of streaming music from Nokia Music, even over a 2.5G connection. Nokia Music+ allows you to download music at eight times the existing quality. Plus, you can set rules to only download high quality when you’re on WiFi, for example.

Lyrics. Words to the songs you’re listening to, right on your Nokia Lumia. Either in a scrolling list, Karaoke-style format, or a display you can scroll up and down.

On your desktop. The Nokia Music+ subscription also gives you access to the service without your phone. A web-app gives you the ability to play Mixes on your computer, smart TV or other connected screens.