Review by bonejob
(10 months ago, using version 0.9.6.0)
Features:
Performance:
Interface:
Price:
Features? Can play damned near everything out of the box. With the right
plug-ins can play ABSOLUTELY everything. It's nearly infinitely customizable,
too; at least for users who bother to learn it's arcane scripting language.
Performance? Rock-solid stable, quick to initialize, light on memory and hard
drive footprints and not a CPU hog, either. The only fault I've found is that it
sometimes crashes or hangs when run in Linux through WINE.
Price/value? Totally free; no adware, no spyware, no nagware to
"upgrade" to a registered (translation: NOT-free) version. Quality
software for free with no strings; how much better can it get?
Interface? Here is the catch. Default interface is very spartan - to a fault
- and ugly to boot. Unnecessarily ugly. Default interface doesn't even have a
volume control. The controls that do exist are frustratingly tiny on even a
medium-high-res (like my 1440x900) screen. Of course, it's possible to improve
the look and usability fairly easily. And with a LOT of work, one can make FB2K
look really dazzling, without making it into a resource pig like iTunes. For a
sophisticated user, FB2K is arguably the best media player available at any
price.
But for an average non-geek user, FB2K is simultaneously too much and not
enough; too much under the hood, not enough default interface. Not everyone
needs to play "every damned thing" and not everyone wants to cope with
what it takes to learn how to customize FB2K to suit their usability
requirements.
Review by bonejob (10 months ago, using version 0.9.6.0)
Features? Can play damned near everything out of the box. With the right plug-ins can play ABSOLUTELY everything. It's nearly infinitely customizable, too; at least for users who bother to learn it's arcane scripting language.
Performance? Rock-solid stable, quick to initialize, light on memory and hard drive footprints and not a CPU hog, either. The only fault I've found is that it sometimes crashes or hangs when run in Linux through WINE.
Price/value? Totally free; no adware, no spyware, no nagware to "upgrade" to a registered (translation: NOT-free) version. Quality software for free with no strings; how much better can it get?
Interface? Here is the catch. Default interface is very spartan - to a fault - and ugly to boot. Unnecessarily ugly. Default interface doesn't even have a volume control. The controls that do exist are frustratingly tiny on even a medium-high-res (like my 1440x900) screen. Of course, it's possible to improve the look and usability fairly easily. And with a LOT of work, one can make FB2K look really dazzling, without making it into a resource pig like iTunes. For a sophisticated user, FB2K is arguably the best media player available at any price.
But for an average non-geek user, FB2K is simultaneously too much and not enough; too much under the hood, not enough default interface. Not everyone needs to play "every damned thing" and not everyone wants to cope with what it takes to learn how to customize FB2K to suit their usability requirements.