Windows Phone Thoughts: Battle of the Players -- Pocket Player 3.51 vs. Pocket Music 5.0.4

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Battle of the Players -- Pocket Player 3.51 vs. Pocket Music 5.0.4

Posted by Don Tolson in "SOFTWARE" @ 08:00 AM

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Product Category: Media Players
Manufacturers: Conduits Technologies and Pocket Mind
Where to Buy: Pocket Player ; Pocket Music (old version?) from MobiHand (affiliate)
Price: Pocket Player = $19.95 USD; Pocket Music = Free (MP3 + Winamp only), $19.95 USD for Bundle, which includes WMA and other features.
Specifications: Both run on Windows Mobile 5 or 6. Pocket Player requires approximately 3MB of memory, while Pocket Music needs 2.9MB.[/b]

Pros (for Pocket Player):

Able to handle most music and video media formats;

Finger and gesture-friendly interface for listing and selection of items.
Pros (for Pocket Music):

Supports the widest variety of audio formats, including audio books, streaming audio, and playlists;

Standard Winamp skins available for look and feel;

Finger-friendly interface with direct access to major features.

Cons: (for Pocket Player)

Limited number of skins available;

Many controls on the player itself are not 'big finger friendly';

Creates playlists in your 'My Documents' folder automatically;

Some features are difficult to get at.
Cons: (for Pocket Music)

Seems to lock out all externally-defined hardware button functions while it is running;

Default Winamp skin has very small controls;

Equalizer degrades overall sound performance.
Summary:
The field of media players for the Windows Mobile is (thankfully) a rather crowded one, with numerous applications available beyond the Windows Media Player provided with the operating system. Two of the more popular options – Conduits' Pocket Player and Pocket Mind's Pocket Music have recently released new versions, so now seemed a good time for a head-to-head comparison of their features and capabilities. Is one better than the other? As all good consultants say, “It depends...”

Read on for the full review!

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