My first impression of Foobar2000 was that it was the workingman's media player. As it comes Foobar2000 is a basic player. Those with a bit of computer savvy can easily modify the way Foobar2000 looks with internal controls in the View menu. The interface is customizable as to what windows appear, how they look, background colors, etc. I especially liked the large cover art window, which is four times the size of the normal view of most media players. It brought me back to the days of being in a music store, during the heyday of 12-inch vinyl, and you were listening to some new music being played. If you liked it, all you had to do is look towards the register and above it would be an album cover with a "Now Playing" sign under it. That's enough with the nostalgia.
As stated previously, Foobar2000 is a basic player, very basic. The library is adequate and mildly configurable. Tagging is manual and limited. Playlist editing is also manual. There is an eighteen band equalizer, but it can only be accessed through menu and cannot be viewed by default. As it comes, there are no ripping or converting capabilities.
While it's beyond the scope of this review, more advanced users may want to enhance the looks of the player or add more functionality. Foobar2000 does not use skins, but uses, what would be more aptly described as, themes. A simple search on the internet will turn up a multitude of themes and plug-ins, but be aware that these third party items are written specifically for particular versions of Foobar. Most of these items I've seen were written for older versions of the player currently available and may or not work in the current version.
The 7.80 MB footprint of Foobar2000 makes it useful as a portable (USB Drive) player. It can be setup as such upon installation. This could be the player of choice for those, like me, who use separate ripping, conversion, burning and tagging software. (Thirty-five years as a service technician dedication was a key word. It taught me that all-in-one's just don't cut it. As the old saying goes, "They're the Jack-of-all-trades, but the master of none."
Operating System:Windows XP - SP2 or newer, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008
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