Streaming services have changed the way we consume media. Ser- vices like Spotify, Netflix and Apple Music have managed to offload all our music to an omnipresent library on the cloud. These services are extremely useful. But in Nepal many of them are unusable because of the problems with payment. Which is why we still carry around our music libraries as local files.These files need to be consolidated into a single library, with a good player to access them. While apps for some streaming services may have been developed to perfection, the same can- not be said about music players that come bundled with your smartphone. The iOS has a slightly better Music app compared to Android’s Google Play Music, which has clunky design and unfriendly UI. So what app should you use? Here we take a look at some great music players for your Android device that should improve the way you access access your music.

 

DoubleTwist

Price Free, $5.59 (Pro)

DoubleTwist is one of the older media players with a well-de- signed inter- face. From the time of its skeuomorphic design, DoubleTwist has grown a lot. Today, the media player sports a mod- ern card aesthetic with large grid-sized album art pages and automatically downloaded artist images for the corresponding page. The media player is also great at handling different and high-res audio codecs; everything from MP3 to FLAC files played wonderfully. There was a bit of a loading time for heavier files but apart from that, it worked perfectly. The player also comes with light and dark themes. While I love lighter themes, the dark theme is bound to shine on an AMOLED screen, while saving you some battery life to boot.

 

Stellio Player

Price Free, $2.99 (Pro)

Even though DoubleTwist looks mod- ern, its age has influenced its modernity. It lacks new design elements and technological advancements. Stellio, on the other hand, is ultra-modern. It masterfully displays a nice waveform of your audio file on the Now Playing screen and all the Songs, Albums, and Artists pages are wonderfully rendered in grid-form. The player automatically enables crossfading and gapless playback, both of which work perfectly. The app has also been written well, with zero to little load time and graceful animations that played out in buttery smoothness. I did face a problem with the app’s complex Artists page. It collects all album arts and renders them as an elongated rectangle, with all the album art inside. There is stuttering due to loading that doesn’t work well even on a Snapdragon 845 device.

 

Phonograph

Player Price Free

Phonograph is an open- source music player that usually comes bundled with some famous custom rooms.  The media player can be easily downloaded to any smartphone. Its beauty is in its simplicity. This player has a minimalist design aesthetic there are no eye-candy UI elements, unlike the previous entry—and it comfortably flows Google’s Material Design standards. The app is also considerably smaller at 8MB and comes with support for most of the popular audio codecs. Phonograph, in its earlier development cycles, was free but currently, you can also find a Pro paid version. While I couldn’t find a price for the Pro version, you will instantly notice certain features blocked on the free version.  While this annoyed me a bit, there is no denying that the Phonograph is probably one of the most stable, reliable and gorgeous media players on Android right now.