The DRM-free revolution continues. While eMusic has offered unprotected music tracks for several years now, and Apple dipped a toe in the water with the EMI-only iTunes Plus service, the floodgates really opened with the Amazon MP3 store. Although limited at its introduction, Amazon now offers millions of tracks from all four music labels, at both higher sound quality (256Kbps MP3s) and lower prices than traditional online music sites like the iTunes Store. Rhapsody and Napster joined the DRM-free fray shortly thereafter. But RealNetworks has announced pay-per-song DRM-free downloads from all four major labels—matching its competition—as well as the ability to listen to Rhapsody subscription content on Verizon V CAST cell phones as well as through other Web sites such as MTV.com and Yahoo.com. Since it's been a while since our last review, we revisited the site and tried out the new Verizon integration to see how it measures up.

The new Rhapsody MP3 store includes about 5 million tracks, including ones from all four major record labels (Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, EMI, and Warner Music Group) as well as independent labels. This is a huge leap from our previous Rhapsody review last fall, when the service only offered 7,500 albums from one major label. However, since that time, Amazon has also expanded to offer DRM-free music from all four labels, and Napster launched its own DRM-free store with 6 million tracks.

In Rhapsody's MP3 Store, you can browse by genre, top sellers, or new releases. There's also a search box with a predictive type-ahead feature. But type-ahead is of limited use, since it sorts results alphabetically instead of by popularity. For example, I keyed in "Rad," but "Radiohead" was nowhere to be found in the short list that popped up. (Typing "Radioh" ended up being enough.) There are also no music reviews (either user or site-based) or suggested compilations (such as with Apple's iTunes Essentials series). The omissions make shopping in Rhapsody's MP3 Store feel a bit sterile in comparison with the more community-friendly Amazon and iTunes offerings.

When shopping for music, most online services give you free 30-second clips—a godsend compared to not having any idea what a shrinkwrapped CD sounds like before plunking down $20 in a brick-and-mortar store. But Rhapsody lets paying members hear the entire song, or any portion thereof, before buying individual tracks. The company began offering this feature last year on its main site, but now you can pre-listen while shopping in the MP3 Store. Non-paying members only get 25 full-length previews per month before the site reverts to 30-second clips.

Rhapsody charges $9.99 for most DRM-free albums; that's a dollar more than what Amazon charges in its MP3 Store. Amazon also offers Daily Deals, which feature one album selection priced between $1.99 and $4.99, as well as the Friday 5, which offers five albums for five bucks a piece. Like Amazon, though, Rhapsody offers a free MP3 Download Manager—in Rhapsody's case, it's a small client that will automatically add your MP3 purchases to iTunes (yep, they'll play on your iPod), your My Music folder, Rhapsody, or RealPlayer libraries.

V CAST Music with Rhapsody is a step forward for mobile music, but it doesn't yet deliver what its name implies. You'll see more integration between Verizon Wireless and Rhapsody on your PC than on your phone. On the PC, you can sign up for a new Rhapsody account using your Verizon Wireless phone number. Whether you go with the $14.99 per month optional subscription fee, or decline it and buy individual DRM-free MP3 songs at 89 cents each, Rhapsody charges everything to your phone bill--no credit card needed.

Rhapsody treats compatible phones just like it does portable music players. Plug in your phone into your PC via a USB cable and sync your music and playlist data. It was simple and seemed foolproof with our LG Decoy handset. You can't sync photos or videos stored in Rhapsody to your phone, though.

There's been no change to the V CAST Music experience on the phones themselves. You can't browse your Rhapsody library, listen to streaming radio or download subscription tracks over the air; tracks still cost $1.99 to buy on your phone, at least double what the same tracks cost if you buy them on a PC. You still have to go into an awkward menu item to put your phone into "sync mode" and connect it to a PC. When you do hook up to a computer, though, Rhapsody will offer to download PC versions of whatever you bought with the phone, though with some delay: two songs we bought over the air didn't show up on our Rhapsody client within an hour. With time, more and more of those versions will be in DRM-free MP3 format, Verizon said.

The service is available on the LG Decoy and Dare, the Motorola W755, and the Samsung SCH-u550, Glyde and Juke. The Motorola Z6tv, Motorola RAZR2 V9m and LG VX8700 phones need a software upgrade that you can get for free in a Verizon Wireless store. More features may come on the upcoming LG Chocolate 3, which is launching in July, the company said.

Verizon offers the only broad range of phones with both a full PC music service and over-the-air downloading. Sprint's over-the-air songs are much less expensive at 99 cents, but they don't hook up with a major PC-based store. AT&T has Napster Mobile for one phone, iTunes for one phone, and eMusic both over-the-air and on PCs for a bunch of devices. T-Mobile doesn't do any over-the-air music at all, but several of their phones sync with various PC music services.

Note that Windows Mobile devices have always been able to play Janus DRM-encoded subscription tracks—say, from Napster—but not Rhapsody subscription tracks, which are encoded with a different type of DRM. So the joint Rhapsody-Verizon announcement marks the first time customers will be able to play Rhapsody subscription music on a cell phone.

Still, Rhapsody's Verizon integration, though unique, isn't yet what it could be. And as for selling DRM-free tracks, Rhapsody's MP3 Store now has a nice selection, but so does the competition—at least aside from the iTunes Store. (Apple still can't play the DRM-free game, because aside from EMI, the major labels are withholding their tracks—presumably to give Rhapsody, Amazon, and Napster some more leverage in the marketplace.)

Meanwhile, Napster is Rhapsody's only serious competition for subscription music—and now it's identically priced, with both services starting at $12.99 for the basic subscription and $14.99 for unlimited, To Go portable versions. For now, Rhapsody retains its Editors' Choice crown, but it's getting pretty hot on the DRM-free battlefield. That may be bad news for the music stores, but it's great news for consumers—who, when it comes to online music services, have more options than ever.