14 DAY TRIAL // We often simply need our music in a totally different format than what we usually have at a certain time and then we are more or less desperately looking for a software to make these conversions for us, fast, reliable and cheap. Hence the abundance of such programs from the very nasty and lousy ones up to the very best and professional software for which you sometimes pay good money.
When it comes to this kind of programs, some features are very important and most of the times these are the ones that decide whether the software goes up or down, ending in anonymity: first of all, the results must have a very good quality and the road to obtaining them must be as easy as possible. Well, after seeing tons of such software, I finally found one which is both dead-simple and produces very good quality, while also looking nice...all for a very decent price.
The Looks
The WMA to MP3 Converter sports no less than 10 different skins, each with a distinct theming ranging from the XP-like "no theme" and up to sober Mac themes or almost SciFi-looking GUIs. The main window is a rather small screen with some large and very readable buttons all having text on them, indicating what they do. This (unregistered) version I've been testing has a "buy now" extra button which I assume will disappear in the full version.
Otherwise, the WMA to MP3 Converter has 2 more windows, one for options, which is in fact a sum of dropdown menus and the conversion window, where you add files whose parameters you want to change. The way WMA to MP3 Converter looks is so functional and so easy to both use and understand that I guess even children could get to use it in just moments, producing very good results!
Believe me or not, this would be all there is to say about the way WMA to MP3 Converter's GUI looks, unless I start describing each skin's appearance, which would be both wrong and boring. I'll just add that the 10 skins coming by default with the software should cover almost every theme someone might have installed on the PC, since they come in a wide variety of colors, thus being suitable for everyone's likes.
The Works
If you thought the graphic-issues on the WMA to MP3 Converter were simple, prepare to meet the same functional simplicity in what the working-related topics are concerned. What I liked best was the fact that all the settings were accessible from one single location and I didn't have to wander through numerous places to have each format's tweaks properly set up: I have just opened the Options menu and there I had everything there was to set up.
There are three file-formats WMA to MP3 Converter will work with (WMA, WAV and MP3) and it is there where you set the generic specs for these formats. Why is this so convenient? Simple: once you have set things up, there's no need to come back to this screen and every time you push a button to change WMA to WAV or whatever, the settings are applied automatically without your intervention.
While the WMA format offers you a multitude of preset output formats, the WAV and the MP3 allow you even further combinations between parameters like bitrate, maximum bitrate, frequency, stereo mode and so on, providing a very broad array of possibilities for your resulting files. As well, the output folders are at your own choice, the WMA to MP3 Converter setting very handy default folders in your My Music location, for every output format which can be changed to whatever would you decide for.
The overall operation is incredibly easy and really fast, so you'll be able to see/hear the results of your work in no time: how hard can it be to push the "WAV to WMA" button and then wait for the processing to complete, especially when you have already specified the parameters according to which the resulting track will be encoded? Well, after pushing a button and the conversion window opens, you just add the files you want and set everything in motion; a progress bar will indicate the status: when it reaches 100%, you're done!
The Good
I liked very much the WMA to MP3 Converter because of its simple operation, very cool skins and good, fast results it produces. Definitely one of the most "direct" such tools I've ever seen.
The Bad
More like recommendations rather than minuses: I guess that drag and drop support could be a valuable asset for the WMA to MP3 Converter, while a minimize to tray option could be very handy when converting large numbers of files.
The Truth
A good investment in a conversion software at a very good price of just under $20: easy and reliable, versatile and at the same time with sleek looks.
See the screenshots below and then convince yourselves by trying the program:
