Microsoft Windows Media Player 10

There are plenty of other new details that make WMP10 feel more polished, such as the sleeker taskbar MiniPlayer, which provides a progress indicator and more metadata. Sizing down the main window also invokes a new compact mode, showing just transport and media information. Finally, there's also MP3 ripping as standard, albeit between only 128Kb/sec and 320Kb/sec and without Variable Bit Rate support. WMP10 will also play 20-bit HDCDs, taking its already impressive audio format support far beyond that offered by iTunes.

We're not happy across the board though: browsing through large music collections still feels sluggish, and searches can be tediously slow. We'd also like to see a way of keeping music in the Library but making it temporarily inactive, a feature that iTunes offers via tickboxes next to each track. Another minor annoyance is that the Most Played list automatically counts those tracks you skip through, making it much less useful than it should be.

The good news is that you 're not bound to one media player except by habit. For example, committed WinAmp users might use WMP10 occasionally but are unlikely to warm to the relatively unconfigurable interface and set ways of working. Similarly, there's nothing in WMP10 to match the esoteric features of applications such as MoodLogic. But for sheer accessibility, plus the integration of the online stores, WMP10 will win many fans.

We're always slightly suspicious of Windows components that can't be uninstalled - remember this is a vital part of the operating system, so far as Microsoft is concerned - but anyone with a Portable Media Center, or who uses their music on a daily basis, will soon find WMP10 indispensable.

Author: Ross Burridge