Walk Through Review

Installation – 7

Because Winamp is free (for most features) they like to cleverly stick extra applications from their partners in during the installation.  There are also a couple of other things to point out during installation.  First being the extra features you may not need such as the full language pack.

Here is the screen you want to watch out for when installing Winamp.  The only thing that might be cool is the Winamp remote which allows you to play music and videos on the web with portable deices and gaming consoles.

Next we are prompted to choose a skin, don’t worry there are over 2,500 downloadable skins available.

Now, you will want to choose the file associations, personally my default player is VLC so I tend to not select any.  Of course you can change the default player for your music at any time through Windows.

Finally, you’re asked for an email address for offers and usage statistics to be sent to the company which is optional.

That is it!  Installation is finished.  Other than keeping your eye on a few things, installation is a snap.

Ease of Use – 7

When the player starts up, Winamp offers to add media to the library, which is a nice convenience for some.  If you like to use a manual method just close out of this.

Out of the box the user interface is very intuitive and easy to navigate from playing an mp3, watching an AOL video, or even surfing the net.

To burn a CD place it in the drive then click on Audio CD in the left hand section.  This will bring up the disc information from Gracenote.

Now click on the Rip button and select any changes to the format or amount of tracks to rip.

Features – 7

There is a lot to do with WINAMP from listening to music, watching videos, surfing the web, and playing games.  There is an artist recommendation feature, expanded flash video support, podcasts,AOL radio, and AOL Video.

While listening to music online or your collection, Winamp will grab album art and other biography information from the Gracenote Database.

Of course another cool feature is a bunch of included and downloadable visualizations.

Unfortunately there are some limitations in the free version of Winamp.  First you are not allowed to rip CD’s to mp3 format.  Formats supported by default are AAC, FLAC, WAV, and WMA.

CD burning and ripping is limited to 8x speed.

I think the worst part of Winamp is having to deal commercials from AOL  music videos.  But if you’re not watching much of them it is a small price to pay.

Performance – 7

Our test machine for Winamp 10 was using Windows 7 with 4GB of RAM we never experienced any issues with it freezing up.  The audio quality is great, and you can tweak music with the basic EQ and more with add-ons.

To increase speed performance, Keyboard Ninja’s will love the amount of built in shortcuts.  You might also want to check out The Geek’s article on how to get the media keys your keyboard to actually work.

Product Support – 7

There is plentiful support via the website FAQ, a built in help file, The Winamp Blog, and user forum.

Conclusion

Overall there is no reason not to try out WINAMP for your music and plain wasting time having fun.  It will work with your iPod and plays the most common file formats out of the box.  It would be nice if there could be better video support and the pro features included.  If you are looking to rip your CD collection to MP3 format at a fast rate you will need to purchase a license for $19.95.  To make Winamp a quality commercial software they should allow mp3 ripping, faster burning, DVD playback, and get rid of all 3rd party advertising.

Rating

• Installation:8
• Ease of Use: 7
• Features: 7
• Performance: 7
• Product Support: 7