.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE Is Busker busted?
.AUTHOR Heather Wardell
.SUMMARY One of the joys of author Heather Wardell’s Zire 71 is being able to listen to music on the go. However, she hates relying on RealPlayer for her mobile music needs. Busker, by Electric Pocket, is a new MP3 player for Palm, and Heather had high hopes for it as a RealPlayer replacement. Read on to find out if Busker played the song of success.
.OTHER
One of the joys of my Zire 71 is being able to listen to music on the go. Since I first got my Zire, I’ve been using RealPlayer for my mobile music. However, I have issues with RealPlayer on my desktop, primarily due to its habit of sneaking out to the Internet and doing who-knows-what. I much prefer the Windows Media Player on my desktop, but since RealPlayer for Palm only connects to RealOne on the desktop, I’ve had to maintain both. Busker, from Electric Pocket, is a new MP3 player for Palm, and I had high hopes for it as a RealPlayer replacement. Unfortunately, Busker, which is slang for a street musician, wasn’t completely ready to meet my music needs.
.H1 Installation
I had substantial difficulties getting Busker up and running. Being the impatient sort, I went ahead and downloaded its demo as soon as I was assigned the review. I installed the program, ran it, and…nothing happened. It just sat there. None of the buttons seemed to do anything, and there were no messages of any kind.
I eventually figured out that it needed MP3 files, rather than the files RealPlayer had been using. I transferred a few MP3s to my Zire’s memory card, but it still wouldn’t play. There weren’t any error messages; the program was running properly, it just refused to play.
After a good hour of this (I’m quite stubborn), I un-installed it, and downloaded it again. This time it looked different on my Zire, and it ran properly. My first download came from Handango, the second directly from Electric Pocket’s Web site, so it’s possible the Handango download was an old version. Still, not a great start. If I had been simply testing the program for my own use, I likely would have stopped right there.
.H1 Listen to the music
Once Busker was installed and loaded with songs, I began playing with it. Figure A shows one of Busker’s main screens, with a list of the folders on my memory card.
.FIGPAIR A Busker’s "Browse MP3" screen shows the folders on my memory card.
Busker’s most interesting feature is its "Quick Mix", which selects 15 random songs from your collection and plays them in a random order. I found this feature useful when I didn’t really care what songs were playing, and it (somewhat) satisfies my craving for an iPod Shuffle. Busker also has a "Playlist" feature, allowing you to put your songs in groups, and into your preferred order, for playback.
.BREAK_EMAIL Is Busker busted? Tap here for the entire fugly story.
Many CDs these days contain a digital copy of the CD’s cover. Busker is able to show these pictures while the music is playing. This is a neat idea, but I found that it didn’t work well for me.
I use the Palm Desktop to transfer MP3s and pictures to my handheld’s memory card. This leads to all MP3s being in the same directory, "Audio", and all pictures being in the same directory, "DCIM". Busker will only show a picture with a file name of "folder.jpg", and the picture has to be in the same folder as the music. I transferred one album’s cover art to the "Audio" folder using the freeware file manager FileZ. The album art did appear, and looked quite nice.
However, the amount of time it would take for me to move all my MP3s and their associated pictures into their own directories using FileZ would be substantial. Many people use a card reader, and I suspect this would be easier with one of those. Electric Pocket recommends Softick’s Card Export II for transferring files. This application makes your desktop think your memory card is a USB drive, and allows you to add, delete, and move files easily right from your computer. For me, though…well, Figure B shows my Geri Halliwell album art with Evanescence’s "Going Under" playing.
.FIGPAIR B Busker’s "Now Playing" screen allows you to show the full album picture (shown here), or just a thumbnail.
Busker’s sound quality, through my fairly cheap headphones, seems to be the same as RealPlayer’s, and both seem to have the same volume level. Both programs often give a noticeable slowdown in playback when switching from one program to another, likely due to the Palm’s processing speed.
Playing music tends to drain my batteries quickly. I set my Zire’s power preference to shut off in thirty seconds, and then started a song playing in Busker. Five minutes later, the screen was still on. Busker does have a menu item to turn off the screen, but you have to do it yourself every time you want the screen off. I think it’d be better to be able to set a "Turn off the screen" preference, so that it would happen each time. Busker will turn off the screen if no song is playing.
.H1 Consistency
Being used to RealPlayer, I expected Busker to function in a similar manner. Essentially, I expected it to: turn my handheld’s screen off when the auto shut-off time is reached (while continuing to play), and stop playing music when I press the power button myself. Naturally, they’re not the same product, and so there’s no reason that Busker has to behave in the same way as RealPlayer. What it does have to do is behave consistently within itself, and it doesn’t.
When I pushed the power button on my Zire while Busker was playing, its behaviour was erratic. Sometimes Busker did shut off and stop the music from playing. Sometimes it stopped briefly, and then started up again. This led to some embarrassment at a coffee shop as my handheld burst into an Eminem song at full volume while I was leaving.
Sometimes pushing the power button has no effect at all, and sometimes it just turns the screen off, then right back on. There doesn’t seem to be any pattern to what happens when the power button is pressed, which actually makes the situation worse.
When the auto shut-off time is reached, Busker usually turns off the music and the screen, although sometimes it ignores the auto shut-off and carries on with both music and screen on. Unfortunately, even when it does turn off, it doesn’t always stay off. Sometimes I get a little burst of the song every few seconds, sometimes Busker turns off the music, then turns the screen back on, and sometimes it turns the screen back on and makes an odd sound, as though part of the song is skipping very quickly.
The display seems to have some update issues as well. When one song finishes, its information often stays on the screen instead of the next song’s information appearing. Clicking on the information does update it, but also skips the song forward a few seconds. Powering off the handheld, then powering it back on also results in the information not being updated.
I spent a great deal of time trying to delete songs from within Busker. Sometimes there’s a "Delete" item on the "Songs" menu, and sometimes there isn’t. Sometimes selecting "Delete" does delete a song, and sometimes it doesn’t. I eventually discovered that you could delete a song from the Artists or Folders view, but not from the Playlist view (where "Delete" is sometimes available on the menu but has no effect). Before I figured this out, I emailed Electric Pocket, using the support address on the Web site, and received no response.
.H1 Summary
Overall, I think that Busker has the potential to be an outstanding music player, but it has a long way to go before it reaches that goal. It absolutely needs to be consistent in its operation, it needs a clear user manual, which it doesn’t have, and it needs to provide feedback to the user when an action is not available. There’s currently a Web page at Electric Pocket’s site that gives a general summary of the program, but more detail is needed.
Updates are coming out very frequently, three came out during the time I spent testing Busker. While these updates are adding excellent new features, such as the Playlist, they haven’t succeeded in resolving its inconsistent behaviours.
At the moment, I rate Busker a 2. There are some interesting features, such as the Quick Mix and the Album Art, but the basic functioning of the program isn’t solid yet. With additional testing and polishing, Busker could become a viable alternative. But right now I can’t recommend it.
.RATING 2
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on Busker MP3 player, visit http://electricpocket.com/products/busker.html.
For more information on RealPlayer, visit http://www.real.com/player/?src=realplayer.
For more information on the Zire 71, visit http://www.palmone.com.
For more information on Handango, visit http://www.handango.com.
For more information on the iPOD Shuffle, visit http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle.
For more information on FileZ, visit http://www.nosleep.net.
Fore more information on Softick’s Card Export II, visit http://www.softick.com/cardexport2.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
