Of course you knew I was going to give it a whirl, right? I’ve been checking it out for the past few days, seeing what they had and what they didn’t and for me it seems like it’s less ‘have’ and more ‘didn’t’. No Depeche Mode for example, among others.

Did a download. 1 Brian Setzer album for $8.99. A bit of a hitch here that I can save you from if you have multiple payment types set up at Amazon. I had my old (stolen) credit card still over there and it would not let me continue to purchase using 1-click (which is the only method for purchasing downloads) until the bad card was gone from every aspect of my account.

After jumping through the hoops, I installed the Amazon downloader and purchased my album. You download a single .amz file (cute eh?) which opens in the downloader automatically. Then, your tracks are downloaded. The very second they are done, like magic, they are in iTunes ready to listen to. No delay at all.

Quality? As promised, DRM-free MP3 files with a huge bitrate. Screenshot? sure.

Why would I use this instead of iTunes? Let me count the ways.

• No DRM - I can play these tracks on any device, or every device should I so choose. Burn ‘em to CD as much as want as well.
• High Quality tracks. 256K is double the quality of the tracks at the ITMS (except iTMS plus tracks) for the same price.
• Works with iTunes - And it’s seemless. It just happened, no fiddling around.
• Tabbed browsing - This has been my problem with iTunes for so long it’s not even funny. There are times when I want to check out multiple tracks out of a list (top 10 or top 100 for example) and it’s tedious when you only get one screen at a time.

If they can continue to expand their offerings, keep the prices where they are, keep ‘em DRM free I can see this turning into my new music store for sure. I will keep you posted.