Rhapsody vs Napster: online free trial observations and a review

Last Thursday I signed up for a free trial of Rhapsody. I only did so because it was a special offer I got in a MyPoints email and I am all about getting free stuff through MyPoints. If you are not already a member of MyPoints, what are you waiting for? Join MyPoints NOW! Seriously. You can get free gas cards from them, among other things. In fact, that Rhapsody free trial I did gave me half the number of points needed for one $10 gas card from MyPoints. But that is beside the point.

With Rhapsody you get a two week free trial. I decided to cancel it today while I was thinking about it. I did not want to forget and end up with a charge on my credit card - because you have to give a credit card for the free trial to start. And supposedly you get to use the account until the trial period is up.

Prior to signing up for Rhapsody I had done a free trial of Napster’s online music service. I preferred Napster when it was a file sharing site When I was using Napster I noticed that a lot of the things that I was looking for just plain were not available. I wanted to hear the Andrea Corr solo album - not there. I wanted to hear the latest Beth Hart album - not there. I wanted to hear the latest Aly & AJ album - it was there! But wait - only 3 of the songs were available for full listening. The remainder of the album just offered 30-second clips and you had to pay $0.99 per song for the entire song. Balls to that.

With Rhapsody I was able to find the things that I could not find on Napster. So, score for Rhapsody!

Both sites offered downloadable software as well as allowing you to play the music from their site. I tried out both options with each service. Napster would sometimes get a bit sluggish when searching for what I wanted. I did not have that problem with Rhapsody. However, with Rhapsody I did have the problem of the audio buffering, only it was more like skipping. That was a real problem. Of course, that could have been contributed to the memory hogging programs I was using at the time.

When it came time to cancel, Napster was a piece of cake. If you are still in your free trial period, you can cancel without needing to call anyone. That is a real bonus. I was not so fortunate with Rhapsody. Not only do you have to call Rhapsody to cancel, but actually finding the number was quite a chore. So, if you need to cancel Rhapsody, you just call 1-866-597-5465. Be warned though that their customer service is clearly farmed out to India, which was a little frustrating. However, I was pleased with how quickly I was able to cancel.

Both services state that even if you cancel before the trial period is up that you can still access the service. With Napster, this was totally true. With Rhapsody, not so much. My trial period with Rhapsody does not end until May 9th but my access is already disabled.

While both Rhapsody and Napster had their positives and negatives, I think that Napster came out the winner in the end. But I would not pay for either service personally. Get a 14-Day Free Trial to Rhapsody if you are interested.