This is a review of LCG Jukebox 2.4 from Lonely Cat Games, a music player for S60 mobiles.
Review Conditions
LCG Jukebox was installed on a Nokia E71, an S60 3rd edition FP1 device.
Installation
The .sis application was installed using the Nokia PC Suite’s application installer. Make sure to install the right version. There are 2 versions for S60, one for S60 3rd edition one for the older S60 editions.
First View
LCG Jukebox aims to replace the music player that comes with all S60 mobiles. Does it have the features that make it compelling for you to abandon the native S60 music player? Lets find out.
Main Review
The first time the application is started, you are asked the location of the music folder. All new music files added to this folder are automatically picked up by Juke box. The lack of this feature in the native S60 music player has left me fuming whenever I use it. You’d have to “refresh” the music player to add new tracks in the native S60. So the Juke Box has created a good first impression.
The Juke Box presents all the information you need on the playback screen – time for the track to complete, a thumbnail size album art, artist, title, album, track number, next track, bit rate, equalizer, volume control and play/pause buttons. This is great, when compared to the native S60 player, which has limited information. To the credit of the S60 music player, the album art is pretty big and looks good on the playback screen. See the images of the playback screenshots in LCG Jukebox and the native S60 music player below.
When the application is pushed to the background, the Juke Box minimizes itself to a small bar on the lower right side of the home screen, displaying the track information. But you still need to open the main Juke Box application to control playback. When you move to other folders, the Juke Box hides itself and then reappears when you return to the home screen. That makes it unobtrusive when you want to relegate it to the background for serious work. The native S60 music player is integrated into the standby screen.
The Juke Box carries a lot of keyboard shortcuts. There are shortcuts for almost every major operation on the Juke Box.
On the player, you can navigate tracks, play/pause/stop and read track information using keyboard shortcuts. I also liked the ability of the Juke Box for progressive fast forward using the D-Pad. While the S60 music player relies on the D-Pad for playback, the Juke Box relies mostly on the keyboard for playback. I find this easier. Only for the pause/play and progressive fast forward, the D-Pad is used.
There are also shortcuts for album art, configuration, playlist management, etc. I found the shortcuts to be very efficient and it reduced directory navigation to a minimum.
There are seven present equalizers and you can also change the equalizer settings but I couldn’t save my equalizer settings. The custom settings were present even after I closed the application and opened it again.
You can read lyrics when a song is played and view album art.
There are a bunch of basic configurations that I don’t want to elaborate on. They are self explanatory.
Juke Box also has an internet radio station that streams music from various radio stations. You can add new stations or import your favorite station list.
Another feature I liked about the Juke Box was the Sleep Timer, that shuts down the application after a number of minutes. When the sleep time is reached, it doesn’t shutdown the application abruptly but the music slowly fades away.
Handling
I liked the easy navigation using shortcuts and the extensive playback screen. Using Juke Box is very simple and you can get familiar with it before you finish listening to 2-3 songs.
Weaknesses
The Juke Box is plain vanilla music player for the mobile phone. It does not allow sync with a desktop application. It also does not have the facility to buy music over the air. Lack of sync facility also means it doesn’t support podcasts. Juke Box doesn’t support smart playlists. It also doesn’t support rating for tracks. I missed visualization.
Sync with a desktop application opens up a lot of features that are essential. You can rate tracks, edit track meta data and use last played, play count, rating, etc to create smart playlists.
Conclusion
While the Juke Box has a simple and easy to use interface and folder watch feature, it is still found wanting in features like smart playlists, podcasts, etc. Its worth a look and I’ll give it 3 of 5. Download here.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Слава,а ключ вряд ли Друг они будут выкладывать здесь…
а ключ есть