Lifestyle channel from Astraware - Busker MP3 and Ringo Pro
by Gary Mazo
As we reported a few weeks ago, popular PDA software producer and distributor, Astraware has launched a new area of their website called Lifestyle. In the new Lifestyle section there are software titles in the categories of: business, recreation, productivity, reference and security. This review will focus on two of the recreation software titles - Busker MP3 and Ringo Pro. Are these must have apps? Read on for my thoughts.
Busker MP3:
Busker is another alternative to MP3 software titles like AeroPlayer and Pocket Tunes. Here is the official overview from Astraware:
Using Busker MP3 is easy - download and install it to your Palm OSŪ PDA or smartphone, then feed it an SD card with your MP3's on it. Busker scans the card and builds an index of the tunes it finds - it even matches up tracks and artists with different spellings, to give you a nice and tidy list of music.
Busker MP3 features: 
- Unique Album Cover Art picture display
- A bold, bright and easy-to-use interface
- QuickMix - one tap to play a mix of songs
- Busker Favorites - one tap to play your faves
- Flexible playlists
- Browse music by artists or by directories
- Built-in Alarm Clock
- MP3, Ogg and Wav support
- Treo and PalmOne 5 way key control
- Finger-sized button control
- Screen-blanking to save power
- Music plays while you use your Palm
Ease of Use:
Busker is probably the most intuitive of the MP3 players I have experimented with. It was easy to create playlists and manage music and it was graphically pleasing as music was played. Quite simply, Busker does what it is supposed to - it plays and manages MP3 files. You can use Busker to set alarms and wake you to your favorite music. It organizes and plays your songs from either internal memory or from the SD card.
Sound Quality:
Listening to MP3's using Busker was a joy - volume was good, overall tonal quality was excellent and it rivals the best MP3 software for PDA's.
Overall Grade: A
Ringo Pro:
Ringtones are one of the hottest downloads in the mobile phone industry. We love setting unique ringtones for our family and friends. But, they all sound like poor imitations of songs. Ringo Pro changes all of that letting us use actual MP3's as ring tones.
Here is the official overview from Astraware:
Add MP3 Ringtones to your Treo 600 & Treo 650
Ringo Pro lets you add the magic of MP3 to every call tone on your Treo, bringing your Treo to life, every time it rings!
Use your favourite music, and our free MP3 ringtones or explore the world of "real tones" to add some great new call effects to your Treo.
Set Personal Ringtones for Friends & Groups
Ringo provides an easy way to set and change ringtones for your friends....
Each friend you set up can have a unique MP3 or Midi ring and SMS tone, and their picture shown on screen when they call. You can set fun tones for friends, or gloomy tunes for your boss - the choice is yours!
If you use your Treo's Address Book to organise your contacts, then you'll love Ringo's Caller Groups capabilities... Ringo lets you quickly and easily set a unique ringtone and picture for each category in your Treo's Address Book.
Ringo Pro features:
- Add amazing MP3 ringtones to your Treo
- Set personal ringtones and pictures for your friends
- Set personal SMS alert tones for friends
- Set different ringtones for address book groups
- Import ringtones from an SD card
- Compose new personal ringtones with our unique ringtone mixer
- Download free MP3 ringtones direct from your Treo
- Purchase and download polyphonic ringtones "over the air"
Ease of use:
Ringo Pro does exactly what it says - it lets you make your Treo sound like it is playing real music when people call - because you are playing real music!
It was very easy to set ring tones for people and to set default ring and SMS tones as well. I had fun having Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick" play when my 12 year old called and the Beatles' "All you Need is Love" when my fiancee called me.
Impressions:
Ringo Pro is a very powerful and easy to use title. What I did not realize, however, was that upon activating Ringo Pro, the Treo's default ringer settings are overridden. So, I had to manually reset all of the contacts in my address book. I wish that there would have been a way to import some of my settings rather than have to reset them all. I also noticed that the volume of the MP3's was softer than the other polyphonic ringtones on my Treo.
One innovation is the ability to add ringtones from any vendor who uses a WAP-push delivery method or directly from the Ringo ringtones store.
Overall Grade: B+
