New User to WP8 and Xbox Music left head scratching...

[lmnopotts]

It sounds like everything does what it's supposed to... if you have purchased the Xbox Music pass. I have not.

New laptop with 8.1 and loaded all my music in the Music app.
New Lumia Icon, connected to laptop and transferred music to Icon.
Open up Music & Video on Icon and no playlists.
(I'm reading playlists transfer if/only if you have a music pass?)
Manual playlists created in laptop's Music app do not sync to phone.
Saved playlists from itunes from old computer, *.m3u files and loaded into Icon.
Now any song listed in a playlist is uploaded a 2nd time to the phone. WTF.

Is there something I'm missing? Is there really not a syncing version of Xbox Music if I don't want to pay? So now I'm going to have an Xbox Music on my laptop and one on my phone and that don't communicate together and might as well be different music apps?

This is the biggest blemish I've encountered from switching from an iPhone 4 to a Windows Phone, is there some other all-in-one app I should be using then?

 

[Xarok]

I only have a few songs on my phone to save space, so I just use the Windows Phone app on the "metro" UI to organise my phones music library.

I would hope Xbox Music on my PC and the Xbox music app on my phone would sync up if I wanted it to. The Xbox Music app for phones is only usable if you are paying the sub (which I don't have) so I haven't tried it. Although with them removing the "Music + Video" hub in WP8.1 and focusing on the separate Music and Video apps, hopefully us non-subscribers will get this sync functionality.

TLDR: It might work if your paying the sub. Otherwise we may see it with WP 8.1

 

[gapost]

There is a lot of discussion on here about xbox music. Obviously, the iphone started as an ipod and it excels at music management. The only thing I can say is sign up for xbox music and try it out for free for ? days. I think you will find it is worth the money, and with the Xbox app, you can make playlists. Not sure about importing them. Anyhow, if you like it, there are plenty of ways to get an xbox music subscription for a year for about $60 if you look around popular auction sites.