Dec 08
Sigh.
I hope, as I guess all reviewers do when a review is lousy that the company concerned look beyond the dented ego and see what it is that they can rectify about their product. This one pains me as the PR Exec for Datz is great and it's not his fault that I find myself inclined to warn the entire British population off the product.
Datz is a USB secured, two computer authorised, online unlimited download library of some 2.3 million tracks available for a one-off fee of £99. Sounds amazing, doesn't it? I thought so and was thrilled to be able to trial it. However, with huge regret and disappointment, the trial has been a disaster.
Datz and I had a very bad start right from the outset. I received a pre-launch copy and it was obviously sent out way too early so several of the functions weren't working. Despite having some 1.4 million tracks available for unlimited download at that time (fair use policy in place) I could neither search for an artist or track and when after going through some 147 pages I found a track I didn't have and wanted, the facility to download wouldn't let me choose where to download it on my system. I tried to send an email to Datz Customer Services and received an error message instead. These were the main points of my initial upset with a product that requires a £99 one-off fee and the moment you've opened it, refund is invalid.
So I put it to one side, spoke with the PR Exec and was assured that the niggles would be ironed out. Sure enough the next week the Search facility was in place. Yay! However on searching out "Katy Perry" her tracks were available – except for the successful ones. I also couldn't search by album. £99 for B-side tracks? Not likely.
I put Datz aside again – and didn't even gripe too much that I could only register it on two computers. Home PC and laptop then – sorry work system, you'll have to go without.
I've just started Datz up again. I checked for updates and it came back to me after a moment letting me know I was now up-to-date. Wicked. Aware that Christmas is looming and the promise of unlimited downloads with the freedom to transfer those downloads to any device you wish thereafter and 2.4 million tracks all for a measely £99 would be appealing to a huge number of the public I figured Datz would have it sorted.
Curse me for my optimism. Katy Perrys successful tracks were still missing. I popped in several artists I like and nothing came back. Eventually, noticing that Country seemed to feature highly, I popped in Kenny Rogers. Yay! Loads of tracks came up. I started downloading and was thrilled to see I could direct where the files were to be stored on my computer. One track, two tracks. The third track failed. Every time I hit the download button it tried to open Windows Media and then told me there was an error and the track could not be played. Ok, maybe just a one track glitch? Nope. It continued, random track after random track with spasmodic success in between.
I gave up. There was no point continuing with a review when already at this point the product has failed so dismally. I'd hit the roof if I had paid £99 for this.
However I will play fair. I will again re-try Datz in a couple of weeks and if they have sorted these problems out I'll make sure this review is updated accordingly because the idea behind it is brilliant. In the meantime, for goodness sake spend your money elsewhere!
Review date Thursday 27th November – popped in to mark time.