Review: Core Player

The last of the music applications on the review circuit is CoreCodec's CorePlayer ($29.95). According to the Florida based company, CorePlayer is a simple yet powerful multimedia application and is the next generation multi-media playback app for your mobile device.

To see how well CorePlayer represents the next generation, read on!

(Read all of our Windows Mobile Media Player reviews: Kinoma Play, Pocket Player, Vito Audio Player, FlipSide Player, and Pocket Tunes Deluxe. Stay tuned for a roundup of all of these apps tomorrow!)

Let us begin with the formality of reciting the specs on CorePlayer. It is compatible with both Windows Mobile Professional and Standard, supports MP3, MP2, AAC, MKA, WMA, Midi, WAV, OGG, Speex, WAVPACK, TTA, FLAC, MPC, AMR, ADPCM, ALaw, MuLaw, ABC, and G.729 audio formats. Additionally, it supports H.264(AVC), MKV, MPEG-1, MPEG-4 part 2 (ASP), DivX, XviD, WMV, Theora, Dirac, MJPEG and MSVIDEO1 video formats as well as JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG, TIFF, and MJPEG image formats.

Now that we all have the urge to say, Now I know my ABCs won't you come and play with me! let's get to CorePlayer's performance.

CorePlayer navigation is a mixed bag, providing simple/basic navigational functions as well as more in-depth settings for the hardcore user. The main screen has two button commands at the bottom. 'View' simply changes the various views of CorePlayer. Hit this button and you go from the player to the database to the 'Now Playing Screen' to the YouTube screen.

One thing that makes CorePlayer difficult (almost frustrating) is the navigation beyond selecting the 'View'. Unlike other media applications, CorePlayer does not automatically search your devices memory for compatible files. You have to do this the old fashion way; manually. I found it difficult to navigate through database screens to establish a play list or play more than one audio file at a time.

Once you get a file playing, audio quality is good. CorePlayer does come with an equalizer function with eight presets and a custom function to allow you to tweak it as you wish.

The player has customizable hotkeys that will definitely help with the navigation and supports over fifteen languages. One interesting feature is the YouTube support where you can search and play your favorite YouTube videos.

All in all, Core Player is well suited for the hardcore user in that it puts a lot of functionality in your control. Honestly, I never became comfortable with the interface but then again, I'm more of a casual user for media applications. I wouldn't say CorePlayer ($29.95) is a bust but definitely one application you should take advantage of the trial download before you buy.