Product: FrodoPlayer Take 3
Est. Price: Free
Website: www.frodoplayer.com
Features:- Built in DVD player
- Frodo Cam support
- Picture viewer
- File synchronization
- Video player
- Full screen visualization
- External application launcher
- Skins
- Embedded magnifier
- and more....
First Impressions:
Frodo Player is known to the carputing community as a great all-around application. Knowing this, I expect FP to bring a lot to the table.
First impressions of FP had me coming back for more. There are a tons of unique features and there's a lot of flexibility with this program.
I was definately not let down with this robust application. Please note that this review was written on 04.09.2005. We apologize for the images, they were captured on an actual carputer, taken out of the car and hooked up to a monitor.
A Closer Look:
A closer look at the options menu screen and you can see all the features of Frodo Player. the left picture shown below is the navigation menu to get everything other than the music player.
You can see the FrodoCam, the DVD, Apps, Radio, etc...all easily accessible from one location.
Most of the buttons are large and easy to use with a small 7 inch touch screen.
The right picture below shows the external application launcher. Once again, large areas for use with touch screens, works great.
Installation:
Installation is fairly easy with FP. After installation you can play with a myriad of settings and controls. As can be seen in the pictures below, there are two separate settings pages.
Each page offers navigation submenus along the left side, with their corresponding elements displayed on the right side of the screen.
You can edit everything from voices, skins, security code option for modifying settings, to separate settings for all the 'mini Frodo' applications. Click pictures below for larger view.
Observations:
Frodo Player has all the expected ammenities you expect in a top level carputing interface. The two pictures below show iGuidance running imbedded within FP, and the file synchronization page.
Frodo player also has it's own camera display. This is very helpful for reverse cameras or security cameras.
Conclusions:
Frodo Player is a solid app that works amazingly well. There was one thing that we did not like - the size of the buttons for song navigation with the default skin. The buttons are rather small when using a touch screen. (shown in the picture below, in the lower right hand corner)
But, since FrodoPlayer is skinnable, you can easily use another skin that fits your style better, or even make your own.
Frodo Player is a great program. It's easy to see why it's one of the most popular. After installation, I had an issue with FrodoPlayer not filling up the whole screen. After poking around the setting pages, I was able to find a setting that toggled FP into full screen mode.
Hats off to Frodo for his tremendous accomplishments in such a short time that Frodo Player has been around. Expect to see and hear more from this man Frodo. He is one of the leading code gurus of the carputer community. Be sure to check out his website, there are many more applications that Frodo has created himself, that work great with Frodo Player
Frodo Player take 3 was tested here.
www.frodoplayer.com
Pros:- Magnitude of features
- Internal DVD player
- Skinnable
- Browser style screens
- On screen magnifier
- Robust setting screens
- Frequent updates
Cons:- Size of music navigation buttons.
- Volume increase and decrease have sweeping delay, instead of instant results.
- Error message if you click empty, non-used menu buttons
Note:
Only post additions or your personal reviews in this thread. No need to make comments about unrelated issues, banter about Frodoplayer, etc... No post whoring, all irrelevant and useless posts will be removed. No other front ends should be mentioned within this thread. We will periodically update first post to keep consistent with new features/releases. Keep this thread clean, we do not need to have a 100+ post thread 'reviewing' one single frontend.