³

Summary

There are a few good music players out there which can’t be downloaded directly from the internet, but instead require further apps to do so. We all know that it’s a lot more convenient when the player of your choice can take care of this on its own, without requiring another app. If you haven’t yet found a player that lives up to this criteria you should have a read-through of today’s test review.

³ is a very easy-to-use music player, which also enables you to download CD covers from the internet. You can access all of the player’s functions and options on a screen.

The cover or artists will be shown in a “Cube” display, as a “Wall” or “List”.

You can also select as well as compose playlists.
 

After you start ³ you can automatically download any missing CD covers. This worked without any problems during the test run. The right cover was selected for each CD, and there was only one cover that couldn’t be retrieved.

You’ll find all the functions you’ll need to play the tracks on your MP3 on the main screen. The control element is located in the upper margin (this includes skip back, play current song again, play/pause, random, and skip forward).

You can browse through your CDs – which are displayed in the form of a cube, naturally – and play songs by clicking on a given album. By sliding across the screen horizontally you can search through your CDs alphabetically (when you’re in the Cube display). You can also select whether you want the display to be in the Wall mode (all your CD covers will be shown) or Simple mode (list of albums) via the menu button. Within either display you’ll find two small points below the Cover or List. If you click on these for a long time, you’ll be able to switch between “Artist” and “Album” by sliding across the screen horizontally.

There’s a “Search Button” located beneath your CDs, which will allow you to browse through your MP3. A button in the lower right margin leads you to your current playlist. You can fill this playlist in several different ways. If you click on a CD a list of the songs will open up. You can start playback by clicking on a song. If you click on the song for a long time it will be added to your playlist. You can also add all the songs from the album to your playlist by clicking on the button beneath the song list.
You can save and label your current playlist by clicking on the “Save” button in the lower margin.

You’ll find the following option when you click on the menu button:

Check cover
Concerts
Theme
Playlist
Display
Settings

You can search for missing CD covers using the “Check cover” function. By clicking on a cover for a long time, all covers available on the internet for the album in question will be displayed, and you can choose which one you want to use. If you’ve stored any covers on your SD card these will also be shown and you can select the ones you like. Unfortunately, it isn’t possible choose which cover you want to display by selecting a file from your SD card manually.

In order to be able to use the “Concerts” option, you have to download Concerts³. Once you’ve done this, the concerts given by artists whose music you have as MP3s will be shown. This isn’t a bad feature, but what I noticed during my test was that different events of various artists were listed, but they all took place on the same day.

You can change the way in which the covers are displayed with “Theme”. “Half tone” shows covers in black and white and with lots of pixels, “Earthquake” makes them colorful and very distorted.

You can access playlists on your SD card as well as the ones you’ve composed on ³ by clicking on “Playlists”.

“Display” allows you to change the optics of your CDs, as mentioned above.

“Settings” gives you the following options:

Use headphones(³ will then react to whatever buttons are on your headphones)
Full screen
Control elements (locates the control elements in the lower margin)

If you make us of a Last.fm Scrobbler you can also choose to use this; use “Simple Last.fm Scrobbler” and “Scrobble Droid” to do so.

Bottom line:
³ strong points are that it’s easy to use but still offers all the functions a player should have. The “Cube” display looks awesome and makes for very convenient usage.
 

There were no problems with ³ during the test run.

The app can be downloaded for free from the Android Market.