Review: Kinoma For Palm

There are a host, a veritable cornucopia if you will, of well intentioned media players for your mobile device out there in cyberspace. All of them work, some of them better than others. But you may be hard pressed to find a reputable player that is flat out hands down better than all the rest on the market. What I mean by that is “The Best”. It’s all subjective anyway right? Some players will play every type of coded media out there, except that one that you use. Some play movies extremely well but music, not so hot or, vice versa. Some are free, incredibly well built, and then switch to shareware and reset your device. But the point is, there are plenty to choose from and choices are usually made by personal needs and price.

As with most things most of the time, you pay for what you get. If you want a cheap Rolex, go to 42nd street and pick one up off a table. Me, I don’t want a Rolex or a ‘Rollex” a watch that keeps time is good enough. But if you go to a fine jeweler and buy a Rolex, you will get what you paid for, along with the satisfaction of knowing your purchase will be backed by a company that cares about its customers.

Kinoma is one of these companies. I will get into the working details of their player (Kinoma Player 4 EX) in a moment. But first I would like to tell you about their customer service. To be perfectly honest, I had some trouble with the streaming portion of Kinoma. I couldn’t get it to stream movies I have on two different servers. After getting a bit frustrated, I went to their site and filled out a trouble ticket, of which I was wary of since I haven’t had much success with the whole ticket thing. But wait! What’s this? A response? Immediately? Within a very short period of clicking “submit” I received a response. Not just a typical stupid response, but a check list that was a real attempt to address my issue. The Kinoma customer service team worked with me over the course of several days to fix the problem with quick, respectful courteous intention. More on this in a moment. What do I think of the player?

Kinoma Player 4 EX is excellent! It’s like Butler in the fact that it knows your Palm. It has yet to reset my 700p which is a feat unto its self. It plays MPEG-4, AAC, Flash and Windows Media 9. Yes, it will play your Windows files. Setup is quick and the learning curve easy. Kinoma gives you a media guide with a catalog of free streams, audio and video. I found this particularly cool because I was able to find Air America already pre-set, and I could listen to broadcast from different parts of the country. Another feature I found particularly cool, is the support for MacOSX. This is something oddly missing from a lot of other Palm developers. Not only do they support it, but they know what they’re talking about if you need to ask questions. Kudos!

Kinoma was also smart enough to create a program for you to use in conjunction with their player. Kinoma Producer 4 is absolutely amazing, and it too is Mac friendly. KP4 will transform your movies to the codec you desire. Not just for your Treo, but Playstation portable, iPod or what ever handheld device you own. It makes the files smaller so you can pack more on your card, and it does it fast, really fast. This is a program to have even if you don’t have the player. I would like to see Kinoma push Producer a little more. It’s a first class application that would be embraced outside of our Palm community. Okay, back to the player. There are of course a few things I didn’t jump for joy over.

Cons:
The UI, although sleek and smooth in all Black, could in my view be a little flashier.
The player automatically syncs all of your media files when you start it up the first time. That’s fine, but I wasn’t ready for it, and it didn’t allow me the opportunity to get only what I wanted it to get.
There is no demo version. I have a hard time with developers who don’t allow buyers to see if they like it first. In particular when it relates to mobile devices, since they can be testy at times.
There are a few quirks here and there, most of which involve personalizing the program. I’m big on having it my way.

But all in all, videos are smooth, very smooth, and audio is impeccable. Kinoma is a one stop shop, not only playing all of your audio/video files but also your photos. It’s Picture player is extremely good. The photos are crisp and size nicely in the widow. The jump from the built in Kinoma on my 700p to 4 EX is huge. There is a hefty price for that jump however, $24.99 or $14.99 if you are upgrading from a previous version. But I must say, you get what you paid for. Why? Because above and beyond the excellent Player and world class encoder, is the company. Kinoma is a model that a lot of other companies should adhere to. Yes, I had a few problems with my initial setup. But the way they stood by their product, and frustrated customer, took that frustration and turned it into adulation. Is Kinoma the “Best” media player out there? For your Palm, I would have to say yes! Even knowing that “Best” is subjective, I haven’t come across another player that knows your Palm as well as Kinoma, or accomplishes it’s goal as adept and complete.

Note: The problem I had was with my server not Kinoma. But Kinoma worked with me to fiqure it out and getting working. That’s class!

Visit Kinoma and have a look around.