Zune Pass

[Q]

It's still awesome

 

[frostedflakes]

Originally posted by: Sawyer
I have a friend that does this but he has a drm remove and keep some of it. The Zune Marketplace also gives you 10 tracks a month that you can keep even when you drop the subscription

Yeah it's not a bad deal when you consider this, then it's basically like paying $5/mo for unlimited music rental.

Personally, though, I hate the idea of renting music. I stick with CDs and occasionally buy MP3 tracks at Amazon.

 

[QueBert]

A good deal, but I'm still too cheap. I'll take the CD's I've had forever and whatever random free song of the week iTunes offers. I've ever liked a few of them. 52 totally free songs a year isn't bad.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: frostedflakes

Originally posted by: Sawyer
I have a friend that does this but he has a drm remove and keep some of it. The Zune Marketplace also gives you 10 tracks a month that you can keep even when you drop the subscription

Yeah it's not a bad deal when you consider this, then it's basically like paying $5/mo for unlimited music rental.

Personally, though, I hate the idea of renting music. I stick with CDs and occasionally buy MP3 tracks at Amazon.

Renting music is great for people who like the current popular music. If you'd normally buy one CD a month (people actually did that back before everyone found out how easy it is to pirate music), then you're paying ~$15 a month for one CD each month. With ZunePass you're paying $15 for essentially one CD worth of music per month that you can keep permanently, plus as much other music as you want as long as you continue to keep paying. It's a much better deal for people who listen to a large variety of music.

 

[frostedflakes]

True, for some it makes a lot of sense, just not for me.

edit: I probably would save money, it varies but on average I probably purchase at least a few albums per month. I just prefer to buy my music in CD format for a number of reasons.

 

[oogabooga]

Originally posted by: frostedflakes
True, for some it makes a lot of sense, just not for me.

edit: I probably would save money, it varies but on average I probably purchase at least a few albums per month. I just prefer to buy my music in CD format for a number of reasons.

I thought I wouldn't like it, but so far I have.

Some Downsides :
- It sucks when I don't sync my zune for awhile and have to sync before I can play my tunes.
- I sometimes forget about the ten free songs.

Is there a way to buy a song in your collection without going to the marketplace and researching it? I am not at home, but I remember there not being an option from the collection window?

 

[TallBill]

Originally posted by: oogabooga

Originally posted by: frostedflakes
True, for some it makes a lot of sense, just not for me.

edit: I probably would save money, it varies but on average I probably purchase at least a few albums per month. I just prefer to buy my music in CD format for a number of reasons.

I thought I wouldn't like it, but so far I have.

Some Downsides :
- It sucks when I don't sync my zune for awhile and have to sync before I can play my tunes.
- I sometimes forget about the ten free songs.

Is there a way to buy a song in your collection without going to the marketplace and researching it? I am not at home, but I remember there not being an option from the collection window?

Click on more info or album info or something. Then right click, buy song. If you have a credit, it'll give you the option first.

 

[LordMorpheus]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
I use Napster, which did this first. Rhapsody is also similar. Both work with non-zune/non-iPod players like Sandisk Sansa

All 3 let you play from a PC not just download, so I have it installed on my music server. I can listen to new CDs to decide whether to buy them, and keep listening to CDs I don't like well enough to buy.

If you have a Zune, zune pass makes sense. If you have a PlaysForSure player that's compatible then Napster and Rhapsody are better.

I had a SanDisk Sansa View for a while with rhapsody, but I hated it so much that I finally got a Zune 120 a few weeks ago. It's night and day in terms of mp3 player quality. The Sansa was a completely piece of trash, the zune is great and I haven't had any problems with it so far.

I also think the Zune software is really slick. The keep 10 is a nice bonus but I'd be paying anyway.

Subscription music is in my opinion the future. If I had iTunes or if I was buying CD's I would have spend thousands and thousands of dollars on music by this point - the Zune pass lets me go through the related artists to the ones I like, listen to them, and decide whether or not I want to download their stuff. When I first put my collection together I probably grabbed something like 1500 songs in a week, and now it's steadied out to two or three albums a week.

15 dollars a month is really a trivial amount of money. I'm glad to give that up for the service.

As to availability, Zune doesn't have all of my artists available, but a good number of them that aren't available can be downloaded with the 10 free songs a month credit, which is nice, and the selection is about as complete as Rhapsody and Napster (I used both of these services at different times with my View), just with holes in different places.