You can get your music from specific MP3 retailers, you can get it from your network operators, and increasingly, you can get it from your handset manufacturer. Fresh off the back of the Nokia's Comes With Music announcement, Sony Ericsson has announced PlayNow plus, which gives Sony Ericsson customers unlimited access to millions of tracks for one flat rate. This is all part of what Omnifone announced back at 3GSM.
Thanks to HSDPA, you'll be able to download tracks over the air, as well as from your computer. You can send playlists between them, and there will be a TrackID Chart accessible for discovering new music. The only problem comes at the end of your contract, where you're only allowed to keep the top 100 most played tracks (about eight CDs worth).
It's launching initially this year in Sweden, and is being rolled out throughout Europe at the beginning of next year. There's no word on costing for this, and whether it will be an additional cost to your contract (we would have thought so).
To celebrate, Sony Ericsson is releasing a special edition W902 Walkman phone, which will come pre-loaded with the top 1000 PlayNow plus songs, as well as featuring a five megapixel camera and 8GB of internal memory.
Sony Ericsson
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The usual rubbish. "Pay, er, PlayNow Plus is completely unlimited, covers all major labels, no DRM, get all you want any time you like! This is the biggest deal in mobile music ever! Of course, it'll only play for the duration of the contract, all songs then disappearing. Well, just a little DRM. Honest." Etc.