Samsung has announced the launch of its own iTunes rival in the form of the Samsung Music Store. Price-wise, the store puts itself firmly in line with its competitors, charging £14.99 a month for unlimited downloads and 79p per track.
The Samsung store is offering more than 2.6 million songs for download, from all the major record labels and over 40,000 indie ones too.
The software is designed to download songs and upload them straight onto Samsung's own range of MP3 players; a line-up which has also just had a revamp. And the store also allows users to create a personal and easily manageable digital music bank on both PCs and digital devices.
"The Samsung music store is a natural development for us, demonstrating our commitment to both digital convergence and providing our customers with the best possible entertainment experience," says Derek Wright, the product manager at Samsung.
"Specifically designed to compliment our entire digital entertainment range, this service will provide our customers with a vast library of music at their fingertips."
YP-T9B and the K3
To coincide with the launch of the Samsung Music Store, the Korean electronics company has also launched two new MP3 players, the YP-T9B and the K3.
The YP-T9B has one distinguishing feature which might put it ahead of some of the other flash-based players on the market: Bluetooth connectivity, so you can pair it with Bluetooth headphones for easy wireless listening.
It also has the expected features - movie and JPG viewing, colour screen, FM tuner and 4GB of memory.
The Samsung K3 MP3 player builds on the success of the original K5, but it's a slimmer, sleeker version which comes without slide out speakers, offering consumers the freedom to choose their player to match their needs. At less than 7mm thick and just 50g in weight, the Samsung K3 looks very tidy indeed.
