Sorry to inform you, but playlists for your collection won't sync to your WP8.
Unless you use a x86 Windows 8 computer/tablet... and that's only in theory, my Windows 8 PC is x64 so I can't confirm that.
It's a problem that MS is "working on". I've tried for months - every way you could think of to make it work, but nothing does.
You can make playlist manually on your phone and manually through file explorer when plugged into a PC but that's about it.
If you only have one music device (i.e. just your phone and not phone + Zune HD) I'd recommend moving to WP8. Better hardware. Better games. Xbox music is fine in this situation and the GDR2 update did make some performance improvements on the phone.
Where Xbox music fails, hard, is there isn't a content management tool. I made the switch to the Lumia 928 and I love it over my Tropy. It's just annoying that I don't get the playlists, channels and music picks that made Zune superior to anything out there. It even acknowledged that a podcast had been played on my Zune HD and would remove it from my Trophy. All automagically. Without any wires.
I'm sure the fact that the Zune team moved into the much larger Xbox/Entertainment team had everything to do with who won the urinating contest that decided whose music app lived and whose died. Stupid corporate politics.
Just to clarify, you can sync the content of your playlists to WP8 but the playlist itself will not show up under 'playlists' in the Xbox Music app... and if it does happen to show up under 'playlists' it will be empty.
Just curious- how did GDR2 improve it? Again, I will be synching it and yes, I will only use my phone.
What is moronic and stupid of me is I just CAN'T pull the trigger on this silly decision. I have about 6-8 months, then I will be on a new device anyways. But here I am, about to grab a 900... nope. Really, really want WP8. Gonna pull the trigger on the 820... nah. Love the Zune too much, and the 820 is not the most loved of the Nokia's out there even though it is the price range I am allowing myself.
Meanwhile, I am dealing with a Titan 2 which is driving me batty with it's quirks and shortcomings.
I need an intervention.
@Piratelooksat40 - You've actually spoken to the GM of XBM?????? What's his/her name? I would LOVE to hear the reasoning behind team who came up with the insane XBM/WP8 integration. I'm sure MS employs good people, so it's gotta be some type of crazy corporate mandate, or sick internal turf battle, that produced this mess and is now "spinning" it as a feature. Sad.
He was very apologetic and fell on his sword and said they did a horrible job of handling existing libraries and people that wanted to keep music on their phone. They were basically screwed when silverlight was killed(That was what Zune was written in) and they had to start over.
I worked at Microsoft a long time, I know that they are screwed and doing the best they can with the little that they have. If the company wants to put a bunch of resources and really make it great, they can, but I think they are putting just enough people and money on it.