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PowerAMP Music Player

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The Android OS comes with a lot of different options when it gets down to how you want your music to be handled, PowerAMP is one of the best and most popular option. The application is essentially a music player replacement for Android users that want a little more than the music player their phone comes with, and don’t mind paying a little for a quality replacement.

PowerAMP has been on the top most paid Android application list for months now, and there’s good reason for that. The application comes with the usual support for MP3, MP4, wma and other media formats but then it takes the way you listen to your music to a whole new level. The application allows you to modify the media outputs like bass levels, treble adjustment, and even has a built in equalizer. This is one full feature media player.

Available in the market: Android Market

Version reviewed: 1.1-build-12

The Good
  • This application has great controls for just about every aspect of the output media. The equalizer, bass, and treble control gives you a truly customized listening experience.
  • This app has support for more media formats than any other Android music player I've seen. This means n matter what format your music is in, your phone is more likely able to play it back for you.
  • The design is straight forward and every button/control has a purpose and does exactly what it says.
The Bad
  • The unlocker is a little pricy at $4.99, but is worth it if you're looking for a full featured media player.
  • This isn't the best looking music player. Compared to standard players like HTC's Sense player, this is downright ugly in comparison.

Features & Functionality

Features and functionality is were this application proves why it's currently leading in the market. Over looking the 10 plus file formats that are support with this application, there's still more to love. PowerAMP comes with 10 equalizer presets for those of you that aren't too familiar with media controls, but also allows you to make your own custom controls if you're interested. The included lock screen option gives you easy access to change your music with one click while keeping your phone locked. If the CD you're listening to has no album artwork, the application can access the web for you and pull down whatever artwork fits the CD best all without interrupting your daily audio therapy.

Playback can be set to begin when your headphones are connected to our device. When listening to the songs, PowerAMP has a gapless feature that switches CD's and songs automatically to continue listening without any long waiting periods. If you were to do a media scan, PowerAMP performs very fast compared to other media solutions.  In less than 5 seconds, you'll be listening to all your music again.

- plays mp3, mp4/m4a (including alac), ogg, wma*, flac, wav, ape, wv, tta (* some wma pro files may require NEON support)
- 10 band optimized graphical equalizer for all supported formats, presets, custom presets, per-song/per-list/per-output preset assignment
- separate Bass and Treble adjustment
- crossfade
- gapless
- plays songs from folders and from system media library
- dynamic queue
- .cue files support
- downloads missing album art
- 4 widgets, with album art and without it
- lock screen (2 widget types) with optional Direct Unlock (to home)
- headset support, automatic Resume on headset connection (can be disabled in settings)
- scrobbling
- tag editor
- visual themes
- fast folders scan
- high level of customization via settings

Conclusion

PowerAMP has all these features, and with the option for a 15 day trial, there's no reason not to give it a try. I personally use this on my phone, and using this along with my beats by dre headphones has brought music quality to my ears everyday for the last few months.  While the application is a little lacking when it comes to a visually appealing design, that shouldn't keep most users from giving it a try.

Recommend

Available in the market for $5.17, it's certainly something to consider long and hard before being. If you're looking for a near perfect premium media player that will replace your current player with improved features, functionality, and support for more formats, this is certainly a must try. For the price I, along with the 83,000 others that gave it a good rating in the market,  would recommend it but not before a trial use.

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