Most of us tend not to consider a change in media player, and if we do it tends to be because some fault or feature (or lack thereof) has become so frustrating that it’s no longer worth the trouble.

If you’re using the perfectly reasonable Windows Media Player or iTunes, you’ll probably be hard pressed to find a reason to change. Just because everything works doesn’t mean you should stop looking for something that might suit your tastes better. With that in mind, we’ve collected some of the most useful, functional and less publicised media players available.

While some will play both music and video, for the most part you’d do best to separate the two. While it might seem less convenient to do so, try to think of the last time you wanted your videos to be searchable in the same way as music...

Songbird

For most users the biggest deterrent to a change of media players is the loss of library Data. Songbird is an ideal choice for users with an extensive, carefully labelled and updated library. Songbird offers the ability to import both from standard folders and to import a full iTunes library, so you won’t be left out in the cold, adding tracks by hand.

Songbird’s most laudable achievement isn’t the importing of other libraries though, it’s the easy access it offers to its own features. As Windows Media Player 11 has taught us, there’s no point having more features than you can shake a stick at if those features are rendered inaccessible by a poor interface.

Songbird’s library layout should be instinctive to anyone familiar with Winamp, but it’s layout is such that all relevant information is displayed at all times, so there’s no minimal difficulty in navigation. Artists are listed on the left, albums to the right and the resulting cross reference immediately below. It’s simple and elegant and means a bare minimum of time is spent browsing for music, rather than listening to it.

If you’re looking for a media player with something very specific above the competition, then the level of web integration should be considered Songbird’s biggest draw. From anywhere in Songbird’s navigation, users can point the address bar (top) at a web page and use the built in web browser, rather than opening a dedicated web browser on its own. Browsing the web from inside a media player isn’t ideal, but it is convenient.

The other immediate benefit of Songbird’s web access is that it automatically shows what downloadable media there are available on any page you happen to browse. If you find yourself on a page with content you’d like to listen to but don’t care to download, the option is there to just play the file.

It’s important to note early on that Songbird isn’t finished yet; the current release build is 0.2.5 and weighs in at a surprisingly lightweight 12 MB. The fact that it’s unfinished means that there are some niggling issues; it asks whenever it’s opened whether or not you’d like to import more music etc. These are all minor problems though, there’s nothing that should stop so slick a player being anyone’s first choice.

You can download Songbird by clicking here.