PowerAMP – Forget the Llama’s Pyjamas, this is the Cat’s Knackers.
PowerAMP Music Player (Trial)
A wise man once said “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it”, this rule could also apply to the Android Marketplace. Less than two weeks ago I was singing the praises of Winamp for Android to the high heavens but now, out of nowhere, a new app has appeared to completely ruin the Winamp party. PowerAMP is a music player (currently in a trial period) loaded with features missing from other media players such as EQ control, album art downloading and support for a wide range of audio formats.
The 'Now Playing' screen even adds a background effect to match your album artwork
One of the main plus points of PowerAMP is it’s ability to offer numerous options to the user without losing them in a wealth of menus and buttons which is quite a feat considering how wonderfully flexible this app is.
On first start up PowerAMP will scan your SD card for media folders (once you tell it where to look) and it impressively takes an instant to complete this process. Once set up, your media library is clearly listed (either sorted by folder or by Android’s system media library) with album art and once you’re inside an album folder you can control whether to play the whole album, play a single track, add a track (or all of them) to a playlist, make it a ringtone plus much more. The main ‘now playing’ screen is excellently designed, from the clear controls, to the album art (which scrolls deliciously when you change albums), the simple access to your music library and the option to adjust your EQ.
That’s right, EQ.
AT LAST! EQ on an Android music player
Ever since buying my Android handset I have mourned the lack of being able to adjust the EQ when listening to music, having to put up with flat sounding audio was never fun. Not anymore, PowerAMP boasts a 10 band graphic equalizer complete with presets. You can also adjust the parameters yourself and easily create excellent results thanks to the fast, responsive interface. Speaking of interfaces, PowerAMP gives you a choice of three skins as well as a selection of homescreen widgets and a fully tooled up lock screen all of which work superbly. Headset support is also included, when you remove your headset the music stops. Plug your headset back in, the music picks up exactly from where you left off, excellent.
PowerAMP also supports Last.Fm scrobbling as well as mp3 tag editing and comes complete with numerous ‘under the hood’ options to give you plenty of room to make the app work the way you want it to. (Tip : If your album tracks appear in the wrong order (ie. alphabetically) try going into settings>sorting> and tweaking the options until you get the desired result)
Given the choice between this and Winamp right now I think I would have to go for PowerAMP, it does lots of things Winamp doesn’t do (as yet). One feature Winamp does have in it’s favour is the wireless streaming which would have made it a closer call, had I been able to get it to work. PowerAMP is a hugely impressive application and one that is quite rightly generating a lot of excitement in the Android community. As yet there are no details of what will happen when the free trial version expires but for the right price this app could well be an essential purchase.
Link : Install via AppBrain
