Kinoma Play software review

In this review I will be taking a look at Kinoma FreePlay. We recently discussed the software on our latest podcast and I felt it was necessary to expand upon the device’s features having used it for a week.

Kinoma Play is an all in one media application. It takes your pictures, music, video and online media and makes it easily accessible. The graphic user interface is simple and finger friendly, this works on both touchscreen and smartphone edition. The d-pad controls are simple and available on both however I will be reviewing the application on a touch screen device.

Kinoma handles your media in a quick and usable fashion. Breaking each selection into another easy to read and understand selection. You can playback most media about today however a lot of my videos do not work as it requires purchase in exchange for codecs. You can view any Youtube FLV files easily however I have yet to find a way of making the video full screen. (Note for HTC users with the infamous driver issue, its smooth sailing.)
The Music organiser works similarly to most other media players, sorting your tracks by genre, album, artist and song as oppose to having a nasty barrage of titles. Kinoma can handle playlists however the free version won’t let you and there does not seem to be anyway of creating one.

The Kinoma Guide is an archive of thousands of RSS feeds, podcasts and streamable video covering everything from pieces of news, interests, hobbies and sport. There is enough content to keep you entertained and informed for weeks. The sheer amount of feeds here is well organised yet daunting at the same time, there is almost too much to begin with. I’m sure after filtering through the maze of folders you’ll grab a couple of highlights and experiment with something new also.

Since browsing through the likes of Flickr to find something specific and navigating through Internet Explorer to find a picture can take time. Kinoma simplifies this however there are limits on the Kionma FreePlay on almost everything you do. For example, the search of Flickr I did above for ‘Palm Treo Pro’ results in merely 10 random pictures, more if you buy it.

The Services option is an accessibility point for any online accounts you have for media. This is limited to several of the most popular online resources however there are likely to be more in the pipeline. You have to provide login information and in some cases, like Flickr, allow access to Kinoma. Once done you have everything available you have previously uploaded.

History contains quick links you the last 10 items you opened. This is limited to 10 in the free version.

Some the screen gestures are quite difficult to get used to. It is easier to control the interface with the D-pad than with the stylus as you can end up involuntarily zooming in and out. One mild annoyance is the length of time it takes to scan your media. The odd time some phones choose to forget they have a memory card in them and require reinsertion. This happened to me and it took around 5 minutes to catalogue the contents again, whilst I was walking and looking forward to listening to a top tune!

Overall this is easily the best media software for a Windows Mobile Device. Having worked on Palm for a few years the team behind it know just how to present a pleasing product. Its attractive, entertaining and simple. Some may complain that the software is a memory hog, however if you look at just how much there is running then you can understand why, most emerging devices will laugh in the face of this ‘hog’ and happily trot along with it sitting in the background.

In this week of use I have yet to experience a crash or any form of slow down. The application has been rock solid so far. For the first time I actually managed to stream media and Internet radio over 3G, I was taken aback as several applications I have tried in the past have failed.

If you don’t fancy the $30 fee as you don’t use media that much then I strongly recommend the free version just to have, you’ll use it! If not then forget Media Player and Core, this beast is worth your time and money. I will be purchasing this in the near future so check back as I will update with the features of the full version.

Download Kinoma Play.