Amazon Cloud Drive Amazon.com, Inc.

Amazon Cloud Drive touts itself as your personal hard drive in the cloud. While its basic functionality is virtually identical to the other cloud services we reviewed, Amazon sets itself apart from the competition with a unique and appealing focus on media. Subsequently, the cloud service is a win for music lovers, but for others, Amazon noticeably lacks the convenience and usability of its competitorsWith Amazon Cloud Drive, you only pay for what you need. The cloud service provides several storage-tier plans that will work for you, regardless of how much – or little – cloud storage you need. In addition to flexible plans, Amazon provides great content support, allowing you to upload anything digital, including documents, music, photos and videos, with no limit on file size. You can then preview and upload your saved files from any computer with an internet connection.

One of our favorite things, and perhaps most notable, about the service is its focus on music. Amazon recently launched MP3 sales and the Amazon Cloud Player. Not only can you can store your existing music library in Amazon Cloud Drive, but any MP3 you purchase from Amazon in the future is saved as well. It’s also worthy of mention that Amazon’s catalog contains well over 15 million tracks.

Amazon’s content support and music capabilities may be noteworthy, but the rest of its features are disappointingly not. The cloud service doesn’t have any capacity for collaboration and you cannot edit documents in the cloud; you must download files on your computer in order to make any changes. Amazon also lacks syncing, so you have to do all the legwork yourself and you can only use your web browser to access files. It’s not complicated but it lacks the convenience of a desktop app that would allow you to easily move files in and out of folders on your computer.

Mobile Access

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7.5/10

Amazon Cloud Drive offers decent but far from wide-ranging mobile access. As long as your device works with Adobe Flash, you’ll be able to access the cloud service. Unfortunately, 

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this rules out Windows phones and any device running iOS, including the iPhone and the iPad. We were able to access our account from the Safari mobile browser, but it’s difficult and cumbersome to navigate the web interface on a handheld device.

Ease of Use

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7.5/10

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Amazon Cloud Drive isn’t difficult to use, but it is noticeably clunky and lackluster in comparison to the other cloud services we reviewed. The service is also a little on the slow side, and uploading and downloading files can be time consuming. All the same, the service is pretty self-explanatory and new users shouldn’t have trouble navigating the web interface.

Help & Support

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10/10

As a user of Amazon Cloud Drive, you are entitled to the company’s full range of help and support options. This includes an extensive help center that you can browse by topic or specific keywords. You can also contact Amazon directly for troubleshooting help by telephone or email. All our email inquiries to Amazon were answered within 24 hours.

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Amazon Cloud Drive Summary:

8/10

Amazon Cloud Drive is a cloud service that’s rough around the edges but definitely has potential. It provides cost-efficient plans, widespread file support and a built-in music player. If the service gains any traction, expect Amazon to capitalize on the service’s untapped potential and fine-tune it to be on par with the competition..

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