With so many media players on the market, the bar has been set pretty high. Unfortunately, Ashampoo Media Player's faulty features barely make it off the ground.
The user interface looks like a prop from a sci-fi movie, which is fine on screen because those things don't have to actually work. In action, it wasn't as easy to use as other media players we've tried. The interface is skinnable and you can toggle between size modes (small, medium, large), but with each change, we had to learn how to navigate the interface all over again. The player does come with the ability to burn data, MP3, and audio CDs. It also comes with an online radio and the ability to create playlists, but we received an error message whenever we tried to access both features. On top of that, you won't find a ripper or a conversion utility. The one standout feature of this program is its ability to handle a long list of file types, such as AIF, FLAC, WAV, and DAT files, just to name a few. We were able to play our own audio files without any interruption. Help is available through pop-up guides and a help menu, but neither addressed the errors that we received.
The online radio we could live without, but the inability to create playlists was a media player standard that we could not. Although we liked some of what the Ashampoo Media Player had to offer, we suggest you wait until a later version fixes the bugs and emphasizes usability over design.
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http://download.cnet.com/Ashampoo-Media-Player/3000-2139_4-10068446.html?tag=mncol
