The great music war

[willybraatlund]

So im sitting here with my Lumia 920, still waiting for spotify. But the wait is just too long, and as a replacement I use Xbox Music, but there are a few minor problems, the syncing problem, playlist problem, the search is bad too. But I've recently noticed some new apps for streaming music. So I want to know what your experiences are to these apps.

You have

• Xbox Live
• Rdio
• Deezer
• WiMP

They all cost about the same, and offer the same. So which is the best?

 

[Cheruman]

tl;dr Deezer is the best.

Spotify is the one thing I miss when I switched from iOS to WP8 & I was disappointed to find there was no WP8 version in the store. I've tried all the apps you listed with the exception of WiMP as it's not available in my country (UK). My phone is an HTC 8x.

Xbox Live: Obviously the most well-integrated app and it has a good selection of music, although there were some gaps compared to Spotify. As far as I'm aware, the only desktop client for Xbox Music is Windows 8 and the interface is pretty bad (in my opinion). If you use an entirely Microsoft-based ecosystem, especially if you have an Xbox 360 then this is a pretty good service.

Rdio: A brilliant multi-platform service with one of the best looking desktop clients let down by an abysmal WP app. I tried this for a month or two and had to give up, it's just a mess. They recently updated it to fix a few bugs and to bring WP8 compatibility but it still doesn't work properly (at least for me). They clearly only care about iOS as the apps are regularly updated on Apple's platform. They have a fairly good music library but there are some major gaps.

Deezer: I've chosen this as my Spotify replacement, mainly because it works on multiple platforms (including my ageing Logitech Squeezebox) and the app seems to be stable on WP8. I don't think it's a fully-native WP8 app yet but so far I've not had any problems aside from it being a bit sluggish from time to time. The music selection appears to be better than Spotify as I imported a large playlist with hardly any greyed-out tracks. Only downside is their "desktop" client is web-based and it looks very dated, especially compared to Rdio.

If Spotify ever get round to making a proper WP8 app it will never be as stable as the one I had with my iPhone, that I'm certain of. They're either taking their time and will release a killer-app, or, and this is what I suspect, they don't give a crap about WP and will probably push out another bug-filled mess similar to the one i've seen on a friend's Nokia 800.

 

[willybraatlund]

thanks for the answer!
I've been testing the apps, and I have to agree Deezer is the best. Rdio is just a mess. And if spotify now make an app, it will be good. The problem with the spotify app on 7.x was that Microsoft made it, not spotify them selves. I really hope an app will come in not so long.

 

[runam0k]

+1 for Deezer. Nice app. I'll run with this unless Spotify releases something decent. Xbox Music is a write-off, unfortunately.

 

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

I've only used Xbox music. For those not on Windows 8 have you considered using Zune as your replacement for Xbox music as both work together in harmony at no extra cost. Mostly.