I received .21 yesterday, and I have to say, using the media player to play USB content is far better now. Granted I have not tested it enough yet, but I'd go so far as to say the media player is not unusable anymore.
- I have over 700 albums, and scrolling from A to Z on the album view now only takes less than 2 mins for me. I have to do a lot of swipes, and it stutters, but as I said, it only takes a couple of minutes.
- Moreover, if I accidentally enter an album when scrolling, going back takes me to the exact same position in the album list - not to the top.
- Once I finish this 2 min scroll, scrolling up and down afterwards is far smoother (although still stutters a little).
- And of course, the search function now includes USB.
Within the album, songs are still not listed per track #, but we have a workaround for that. These, added to the correct artwork displaying now, for me, the player is better than that in 7.1. Certainly not unusable.
Alpha shortcuts are still much needed, and I'd prefer Album list show the Album Artist tag rather than the list of the Artist tags of all the songs within. Also, I'd much like the scrolling and browsing to be faster.
I have been very critical of 8.0 for the media player thus far, and now I take most of my critique back.