Winamp 5 Lite 5.666 Build 3516

Overview

Since its release, Winamp has been through many changes and encountered a lot of improvements. The latest versions catapults the player into 2011 and even features iPod support, support for new online services and much more. Winamp is a multimedia player that supports a lot of audio and video formats. It is easily customizable boasting hundreds of cool skins to choose from and it remains the ultimate player for a lot of home users. Find out in this review why Winamp has garnered a huge following for its products.

Installation

The installation is smooth and no problems should be expected here. You can choose whether you want some additional components such as the user interface extensions and visualizations to be installed. Winamp also comes bundled with Winamp Remote, a music streaming tool that’s compatible with mobile devices, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. You can also opt to install the Winamp toolbar and you get the chance to get 50 free mp3 downloads and one free audiobook from eMusic.

Interface

The interface of Winamp is one of its many merits. The sleek and visually pleasing interface is highly customizable. There are literally thousands of skins you can choose from. The design is well thought out and all the controls are well placed and they work great. It is entirely up to you if you want a skin that drastically changes the overall layout or a purely aesthetic one. Overall, it possesses a really easy to navigate and intuitive interface.

Pros

If you already have your music collection organized in iTunes, importing it into Winamp is extremely easy. An option of manually adding content to the library will also be presented to you upon the product’s initial launch. The tags can be edited for every file so the artist’s name, song or a release date can be easily changed. In terms of music management, Winamp certainly offers a healthy organization of your collection. There aren’t too many music suites that can compete with Winamp regarding the options related to playing music. The variety of visualizers is massive and the transitions create a truly stunning visual experience. Files can be selected and sent to a new or existing playlist.

Another great feature of Winamp is that playlists can be created specifically for a device and transferred to it. The music sounds great in Winamp and with the help of the equalizer and its presets; you can create the ultimate sound experience that you seek. The updates brought by Winamp’s latest version are the support for portable devices and online services such as podcast directories, internet radio services, Tour Tracker, Song of the Day Winamp Charts and MetroLyrics. Other additional features of Winamp include a conversion tool as well as CD ripping and burning capabilities. The conversion process is fast ans swift. Mp3s, wav, wma, aac, flac, and mp4 are some of the supported audio formats.

Cons

In terms of cons, it must be said that Winamp is a bit of a memory hog. When loading for example, a couple hundred of songs, the amount of used RAM reaches 100MB. However, it remains more streamlined and faster than most competitors, including the iTunes which seem to be fairly sluggish on Windows.

Alternatives

Alternatives to Winamp include Quintessential Player, MediaMonkey, foobar2000 and more.

Conclusion

Winamp is a fun as well as a very powerful multimedia player. It preserves its early accessibility that made it famous and popular all over the world as well as enhanced functions with its latest version. You simply got to love it and forgive Winamp for being a memory hog!