Almost every Palm OS5 device can play a variety of audio files. My Treo 600 is no exception…but it lacks a media player. A basic version of NormSoft’s PocketTunes ships with all new handhelds – let’s look at how the Deluxe version fares.

PocketTunes main screen can be customized with a variety of skins. Since I am half blind and since my Treo has a Lores screen, I immediately switched back to the well-done default theme:
skin0 PocketTunes Deluxe review skin1 PocketTunes Deluxe review

Creating and managing playlists is very simple. However, PocketTunes annoys with a long and slow search – I always cancel that and select the files myself from the file system:
pl1 PocketTunes Deluxe review pl2 PocketTunes Deluxe review

PocketTunes Deluxe has a funky feature called CrossFade. This makes the last seconds of the currently playing sound overlap with the first seconds of the next – at the cost of up to one meg of RAM:
cfade0 PocketTunes Deluxe review cfade1 PocketTunes Deluxe review

On the Treo, background playback is implemented very smart – the volume keys on the side control the playback volume. The usual console is available on the Treo, too(altough the swipe options don’t work):
bgconsole PocketTunes Deluxe review bgopts PocketTunes Deluxe review

Graphic equalizers are included, too. They work very well on the Tungsten T3, but the OMAP CPU of my Treo is overloaded… . A plain volume overdrive is included too…that works very well for silent songs like AlphaVille:
grae PocketTunes Deluxe review

The screen of the Treo can be turned off to save energy. PocketTunes can somehow connect to the PC(I don’t need that) and can play ShoutCast streams, too.

When playing, the Treo slows down a good bit(but remains usable most of the time). Here are the Speedy scores for two MP3s:
Unmodified
Calc Test 1.17 sec
Mem Test 0.53 sec
Graph Test 0.69 sec
Total 2.39 sec ~126 MHz
628 % / Palm Vx

160k MP3

Calc Test 3.07 sec
Mem Test 1.37 sec
Graph Test 1.83 sec
Total 6.27 sec ~48 MHz
239 % / Palm Vx

192k MP3

Calc Test 3.28 sec
Mem Test 1.44 sec
Graph Test 1.93 sec
Total 6.65 sec ~45 MHz
226 % / Palm Vx

PocketTunes can support ogg, mp3, wav and ogg files. It is said to have support for Napster to Go too…can look at that one day, too.

This review looked at Version 3.1.5 on a Tungsten T3 and a Treo 600. The programs web site is here, and a full version costs 34.95$.

Overall, PocketTunes is a very good media player. This review could only look at a small part of the product – get a trial version and look at it yourself! The only nuissance I experienced was the occasional splash screen/search delay…other than that, power to the groove!

Related posts:

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  2. PocketTunes 4 released – review coming soon
  3. Overclocking a Treo 680 – LightSpeed 3.0
  4. PocketTunes 5 – what’s new? (2)
  5. Fossil Abacus WristPDA Review part 2 – WristPDA benchmarks