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A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of demoing a new music store from Thumbplay. There are plenty of application stores available, but not much I’ve seen in terms of dedicated music shops, like the iTunes store of an equivalent. The Thumbplay store is a stripped-down, easy application that allows you to search for music or browse by new releases and top downloads. They weren’t marketing the service much at the time — instead they were trying to make sure it worked well from an end-user standpoint. It appears they’re making a bigger push now, as it has made an appearance in BlackBerry App World.

While browsing or searching, you can preview any song you want before buying. Tracks range from 69 cents to about $1.29, depending on whether it’s new and popular. Best of all, the tracks are DRM-free, so you can transport from your memory card to your PC, and then to other portable media devices.

Downloads go relatively fast. I got a 3:30 song in under two minutes. That’s obviously going to vary with your location and carrier. It’s of course recommended that you get an unlimited data plan, because MP3 files can add up.

You can get the Thumbplay Music Store at App World for free. It’s not the best music store I’ve ever seen — it doesn’t cater to my non-mainstream music tastes — but it has a ton of new tracks, and they’re adding more all the time. Before long it should grow to a greater level. Might as well grab it now while the gettins are good.

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