Tuesday 2 November 2010

Zune Pass vs Spotify



New Dash update brought Zune Pass to UK 360's, so I thought I'd try it out.



It's essentially a spotify style subscription thing, but with downloading and music vids as paid extras. Bit of a mixed bag. The library is superb, there's a shitload on there including some notable stuff that's missing from Spot (eg Led Zep, Dylan). The interface is nice, all very visual with HD pics and a nice method of searching where you peck at letters along the top and your search results resolve below - they could implement that in the games store deffo. It's also reasonably priced vs Spot, £8.99 a month vs a tenner, and you get to 'keep' 10 tracks a month as downloads that will continue working if you can your sub.

Where it wins over Spot is platform support around the home. The zune client is on the 360 and the PC, and your pass works for both. The PC client is very nice indeed, less lightweight than spotifies but prettier and more feature packed.

The Zune software also does podcasts, spotify doesn't, although the Zune store is missing a load of stuff compared to itunes.

A big plus is that the Zune PC software hooks into Windows Media DLNA streaming whatnot on supported devices. There's some issues around DRM'ed stuff if your streamer doesn't support it (and it looks like my Soundbridge doesn't, bah), but this is still loads better than spotify's streaming support which works with Sonos or nothing. Spotify really need to go UPNP/DLNA here, if they could stream to more supported devices, they'd make a lot of people happy.

Downers are it's slow, very slow. Might have been because it's new and getting hammered alongside the dash update, but it was taking 30-60 seconds plus to search for stuff, then that time again to queue it up and play. Spotify's instant by comparrision. There's no free option with adverts, unlike Spotify but they will give you a 14 day free pass to try it out.


Worst part though is the portable support. Spotify isn't wonderful here, but at least their client works with iphone/ipods and android blowers. The zune stuff doesn't work on anything but Zune devices which aren't on sale in the UK or Windows 7 phones which nobody owns yet. I understand why they've done this, but it's a real shame to go from a device that's well supported by gadgets around my home to one that's very poorly supported when out and about.

The end result is, on both streaming library services we're still limited but in different ways. Spotify is fast and will let you sync to your android or iphone, but won't stream to your 360 or net radio device. Zune Pass is chuggy but works with more devices in your home, but won't work with anything you're likely to own outside the house.