14 DAY TRIAL // It is truly a rare thing to see an MP3 player sold for 7 dollars. Not that the price is small or high, or that ideas like ?7 seems a good price? could influence the marketing decision but usually, MP3-playing software is either freeware or sold for about $15 -$30 (Winamp Pro, for example). I really can't exactly tell where should such a software go to as it looks very ?between?, if I may say so.
Many could say that rather than selling it for 7 dollars, the producers would better give it away for free or embed some ads...nevertheless, this is not at all a comforting idea, at least not as we see things through the eyes of the developers. After all, they have put up some deal of efforts and thus created the final product for whose sale they are entitled to earn some money; and if this money is 7 USD, who are we to judge? But this does not change things at all, as 7 dollars remain 7 dollars and still this is a rarely seen price for such an application.
The Looks and Works
The Asram MP3 Player is actually a sober, almost Spartan window whose size is scalable up to the full extent of your monitor, but not being able to go below some certain dimensions in the opposite way. This is a very good thing, as the playlist has columns in which various data is displayed and should the main window go below a specific size, then reading the playlist would be rather hard if not impossible and annoying.
The Asram MP3 Player's GUI does not have skins, but instead, the coloring is highly customizable: it does not have preset color-schemes ? the user can adjust the coloring of many different items in the generic GUI according to wish, mood or even suitability with the OS theme the Asram MP3 Player is running on. Thus, the windows, track title, elapsed/remaining time and track/album coloring for both text and background can be tweaked so they meet the needs of the moment; some preset colors are available instantly but, should need be, the user can choose whatever RGB nuance the human eye can think of...
The display of command buttons, optional buttons and playlist are quite well distributed in this main window: what's really nice is the fact that it doesn't matter whether the window is at its smallest size or in the fullscreen mode ? the aspect remains the same and the ordered manner or the graphic and functional elements is the same. The main buttons (previous, next and play/pause) are placed atop of the interface, just above the volume bar and in line with the seekbar; the last things in the upper part are the three most convenient buttons which trigger the sequential play order, the repeating of a selection the user has made and the looping and the Favorites drop menu. I just have to add that the seekbar has no cursor, but is practically filled with a green bar, much in the Windows XP-fashion.
The center of the GUI has been reserved for the tracklist with its colored columns which allow very handy sorting according to the various data displayed in each. Sorting can be done in both ascending and descending order, so choosing files according to a predefined routine becomes a very easy, even pleasant task.
The lower parts of the main window have been dedicated to the small buttons that regulate the shuffling of the playlist and the toggling of the EQ and 3D menu, the separate channel VU-meter and very small meter bridge, as well as for the Open File(s) and Copy Playlist buttons. Overall, the GUI for Asram MP3 Player is pretty neat, being also kind of warm and familiar without having any exquisite elements or functions and without actually being nor trendy or eye candy.
The first functional thing I have noticed in Asram MP3 Player was that the VU-meters are really slow: I was playing some songs from one of my albums and I watched very carefully how they responded to the actual music. Well, they didn't do well, if I may say so: as I was the one to write, play and record and even master those tracks I knew better than anyone how the volume levels reacted at certain moments ? both channel VU-meters and the meter bridge were inaccurate and worked OK only for music with a very clear beat. Of course this is definitely one thing almost anyone could live with, especially when paying $ 7 for such a player.
Asram MP3 Player is definitely a player that has a good sound; you must not think that its sound is a professional-grade one ? it is just pretty OK for a player like this and the absence of a proper EQ does not make a bad sound at all. The EQ and 3D settings window may seem a bit difficult to understand and use, but after a more thorough look you'll notice that things are really simple and operating the multitude of slider bars is not such a daring task as it may have seemed in the first place. Among the numerous presets it's quite likely that you'll find a suitable one for almost any kind of music you may be listening to while the 3D settings might very well compensate for lousy speakers or crappy soundcards.
One thing which has really surprised me was that Asram MP3 Player has a fully functional and consistent set of shortcuts; even more, these shortcuts are both present and logic, even though they are not that common as one might think ? they are easy to remember and to use, not being overhand like in other softwares. The Options of the Asram MP3 Player aren't that comprehensive as they might have been as they are rather concerned with lesser rank issues such as CD ejection after playback, autoplay and detection of discs when inserted in the drive(s), EQ-presets linking (semi-futile, in my humble opinion) and file format support.
And if we got to file formats, I guess it's time to write down the files supported by the Asram MP3 Player as their number is rather significant: widowsCD, AIFC, AIFF, MP3, X-MSvideo, x-dv, MP4 and QuickTime. The Asram MP3 Player unfortunately crashed several times in a row as I was (almost desperate) trying to load files in the playlist: the player would just hang indefinitely and an annoying Windows error-screen appeared before I was forced to shutdown the application. These signs simply spoke about the possible imperfections in the Asram code as it was very obvious it could not handle some tasks. Hopefully, these problems will be surpassed in the next versions!
Dragging and dropping is supported for both multiple files and folders as well, but I felt quite uncanny as adding further files to an existing playlist must be done not simply by dropping them because doing so would not append but replace the previous tracks; there is a special shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+A) which lets you safely add files or folders to an existing (and running) playlist. Asram MP3 Player has returned some more errors, all hang-related, as I let it play while I was working in some 3-4 different windows. I really can't tell when and why has it stopped, but when I tried to play the next song the application went down on me.
One more thing I could not manage was the ?minimize/close? feature - the producers of Asram MP3 Player clearly stated in one of the settings secondary windows: ?To drastically reduce CPU usage, close the Player window during playback (minimizing the window will NOT do it!)? Need I really say that as I closed the window as this ?piece of advice? told me I have indeed freed up quite a load off my CPU... but this happened because the application closed down! Weird thing!
My final word would rather say that Asram MP3 Player is one potential very nice player, but it also looks like there are still a lot of things to be mended until I (or some other reviewer, even one kinder than I am) should rate it big.
The Good
Overall, the Asram MP3 Player is a nice music player with some cool looks and nice operation. Further development though would surely make it far better.
The Bad
The worst thing is that it crashes for no apparent reason thus proving its poor stability as a final release and even more ? shareware application. This is the main reason for which the overall rating is lower than the average of the other marks.
The Truth
Asram MP3 Player can build up a nice future, should its developers approach its matters with more care and manage to eliminate the small, but very annoying gaps in its generic working.
Please see also the screenshots below:
