You may have read my post raving about the Zune Pass, but I made that post after playing with zune for a few hours. Now that it has been a while and there are a few things I may have not known at the time.
Overall
I have enjoyed my zune pass as much as when I wrote my first impression review. It has saved me quite a bit of money which I would have normally spent in iTunes or through Amazon which I recently tried when buying Ratatat’s new album (I highly recommend you do too btw). I have really enjoyed my zune pass over the last couple of months.
DRM Arggg
As you may have assumed or read the music comes with DRM, if it didn’t then everyone would just buy a one month subscription and download every song in existence. The bad thing that really irks me is the fact that It will not work with my ipod or my iphone whereas itunes and amazon work lovely. I also tried to burn a cd a few days ago but prompted me to purchase the album before I could burn it. Normally I only play music with zune when I am at my computer because that is where I am most of the time and also I do not have an actual zune player. However, mp3s are offered for purchase on some songs while the main format is wma for music included with the pass.
Music Availability
It sort of depends on the artist’s record label whether or not their music is offered with the pass or made available for purchase. Thankfully my music choice has been a good one considering most of the music I like is already included. Most music is available and if it isn’t there are thirty second previews too entice you to buy it. And worst case senario, it flat out isn’t in the zune marketplace.
Videos / TV Shows
There are videos and tv shows, but none that I have seen are included with the zune pass and require you to purchase them to view. Boo to that.
Zune Software
My experience with the software that you use to download and listen to songs has been good for the most part. I only have problems when I am running games, then sometimes it lags out a bit trying to sort through all my music. I have been tempted to just fire up windows media player a few times, but I am just too lazy to add music to the library every time I download something new, also I believe you have to play the song once in zune to properly acquire drm approval etc.
Final Thoughts
If you are strapped for cash or just cheap, the zune pass is the way to go when it comes to enjoying a lot of music and staying out of jail and paying big fines in the process. If you have an ipod or other apple product, don’t plan on using them .wma files to jam out. At best we can only hope the itunes subscription rumor is true, which I would most likely switch to immediately. If you feel I have left anything out worth mentioning or have questions, feel free to contact me or drop a comment.
