The HTC EVO 4G as a Music Player
In the last several years, the lines between phone, music player, PDA, hand-held gaming system, and GPS have blurred as phones now are capable of being an all-in-one portable electronic device. Because of this, it seemed appropriate to review the new EVO 4G with regards to its music capabilities
Coming with an 8GB microSD card (expandable to 32GB) this is a formidable music player that is poised to give Apple a run for their money. The large screen allows for easy viewing of album art, track names, lyrics, menus in media players, etc. and, even with a screen protector, has very minimal glare; this ease of viewing significantly reduces eye-strain over some portable music players that I have used. Also, the touch screen is extremely responsive. Furthermore, the EVO’s 3.5mm jack for earbuds (or your car’s stereo) is at the opposite end of the of the phone from the charger connector which reduces the risk of cable tangling.
There is no shortage of programs and services for playing music on the EVO either. The phone comes with a media player, an application to purchase music from Amazon’s MP3 store, and the music channels on Sprint TV. Besides what comes with the phone, there are also a plethora of free apps available from the marketplace.
Some of these programs are official apps from major companies such as Last.fm, Pandora, Jamendo, and Magnatune’s players. Others are from third parties, but most still seem to be of high quality. For instance, there is an app (Simple Last.fm Scrobbler) to scrobble music from the pre-installed music player, a file manager (ASTRO) to easily mange your MP3’s, and a ringtone creator (Ringdroid) that will allow you to save a section of a song as a ringer. Also, Shazam’s service allows your phone to tell you what song is playing on the radio, over a PA system, etc.
Overall, this phone makes a great music player. I wish the battery would last a bit longer when playing media, and it is a bit heavy compared to some stand-alone music players, but given how much more it is capable of, these downsides are negligible.
A nice bit of information would be what file formats the player can play. Much of my music has been ripped as wma files which the player does not seem to see.
That is a good question and I apologize for the oversight. I am not sure all of the file formats that are supported by the EVO, but I have been able to successfully been able to play m4a, mid, mp3, ogg, and wav files.
The EVO recognized mp2 files, but would not play them. And, it did not recognize the file types ac3, flac, or wma. There may be a third-party application that will handle those file types, but I haven’t looked for one. And, with regards to flac, there really is no point in trying to play them on a phone anyway; the files would take up a lot of storage, and the sound quality wouldn’t be any better than an ogg or mp3 through the speaker or earbuds.
If you come across an app that supports the wma format, please post back in case someone else has the same need.
I loaded a mix of WMA and MP3 files from windows media (via the sync feature) and the WMA’s play just fine. You had me worried when I read it didn’t play WMA’s, but it does. Maybe it has to do with how they are uploaded tot he EVO.
You raise a good point. I just copied files directly from a folder on my hard drive and did not use the sync feature in my music player. This may make a difference in how the file is copied, or some conversion may take place when syncing.
I haven’t found any player for the EVO that will play WMA or WMA Lossless. In some cases, it just hoses the device.
I think it just plain doesn’t support WMA and they need to stop saying it does.
That’s too bad. I do not store any of my music in the wma format, but it is common and should be supported. I was just glad to find that it supported ogg, since many devices still seem to have problems with that.
Thanks for the heads-up, I had not had a chance try mp4 video yet.
I don’t know which Evo you have but mine plays wma files!
There may have been something odd about the WMA file that I copied to my phone, or conne_texas suggested above, it could be due to the way that I copied the file to my phone.
Mine plays wma files as well. But why store the music
through wma when you can just search and download
music right from the phone..there are many simple apps
for it, such as Easy MP3 Downloader.
That’s a good point. With so many streaming services and music lockers, I have completely stopped storing music on my phone.
However I could not play m4a
Were your m4a files DRM protected; if so, they probably wouldn’t play on the EVO. The ones that I have on my phone were ripped from my CD collection so they are DR- free.
They were converted from my wma collection. Mind you, if I can play wma files on my phone, I probably don’t need my iPod and thus iTunes anymore anyway!
Hmmmm. That’s really strange, were you using the music player that comes with the phone, or a downloaded one? The built-in one played the wma that I created from one of my mp3s for testing purposes. I have no idea why a 3rd party player wouldn’t play wmas though. And, other than m4as with DRM – which is clearly not the case with the a file that you would have converted – I cannot think of a reason that they wouldn’t play. Does the m4a play in anything on your computer (just to verify that it isn’t a corrupt file)?
how about the sound quality of the EVO is it comparable with the iphone and the ipod
I agree, the fact that the EVO has a built-in speaker is an advantage over the iPod, and – even better – it is actually a pretty decent speaker.
Thanks for posting a definitive answer that the manner in which WMA files are copied to the phone matters. I have to wonder what syncing the files from Windows Media does that direct copying doesn’t.
can my evo play music via my tv with the hdmi cable?
That’s a good question; I would assume so, but I am not positive. I mail-ordered a mini-HDMI to HDMI cable about a month ago and then realized that the port on the phone is actually smaller than this. Because of this, I have not actually been able to test out how well any of the HDMI functionality works.
Maybe one of the other readers has some experience with using the HDMI out features.
I can play wma files fine, just hooked the evo up and copied the files into the music folder. My problem has been that doing it that way, it shows the information when I look in the music app, but everything shows under unknown artist. The biggest problem since 2.2 has been that it has put all the songs on the albums in alpha title order which is not a problem with some albums, but with theme albums such as days of future passed by the Moody Blues or musical sountracks from Plays, etc, it definitely is a problem. Any ideas how to fix this? Should I just delete and start over trying to use the music program to sync or is there a better music player? Thanks!
It sounds like syncing is the most reliable way to get WMAs onto the EVO. Your best bet may be to do as you suggested and delete the WMAs from your phone and then sync it. I am a bit confused why this problem seems to only affect WMAs though. Other files such as mp3s and m4as seem to work correctly when just copied over.
If anyone from HTC or Google (in case it is an issue with the OS) is reading this, please post an official reason for this issue.
My phone plays the wma files fine, however, the problem since the system update is that it can no longer read the tabs and doesn’t know artist names or albums and didn’t save the album art, or applied the album art of one album to every wma file. On my phone I copy and pasted, my sister’s phone synced, both have the same issue. Has anyone discovered a way around this yet?
Given the number of issues regarding WMA files, it would be great if HTC or Google would drop by and leave a response.
Need Help, An album was converted to MP3, the player will accept some of the tracks but say it cannot play the format of other tracks which were converted at the same conversion. It may or may not allow it to remain on the SD Card. The properties of those rejected vs those accepted have been examined and I cannot find a difference.
I have used manual copy, Sync with Windows media Player and iSync fir iTunes
Anyone, experience this problem?? Music for Android, HTC, Version 1.60.0000.218634
I have come to the belief that some how the phone is causing this problem There are too many inconsistencies. One time it wii accept the track and show album cover and play. I load another track from the same album and both will not be recognized. Or the one that was just loaded will be played but the other which previously played will not. This also occurs to tracks that have been played previously when tracks are loaded from a completely different album or artist. Additionally, when this happens to the track it will no longer play on Media player, real player or iTunes even though the original on the computer remains playable on all three.
The above happens when using either the HTC media player or Realplayer beta.
I believe it has something to do with the operating system, I have not yet tried a reset of the phone, but I presume I must.
If the tracks play on you computer, but do not play when copied to your phone, and these same tracks do not play when copied back to your computer, it sounds like there may have been some file corruption when copying the files. Did you make sure to unmount the phone before unplugging it from the computer?
I was wondering if there is a mode on the EVO that allows the Music to stop after playing one song (instead of continuing to the next song) I’m using my phone also as a karaoke machine sometimes and hate to awkwardly stop it just before the next song starts! Thanks for any advice about this! I’m transitioning from the original ipod and looking for a way to do the same on my EVO!
Thanks Again!
You could create a playlist with just that song in it. Or, if you knew several songs in advance that people wanted to sing, you could copy a track with 30 seconds of silence to your phone and then make a playlist of song 1, silence, song 2, silence, etc.
Cball – i just got an Evo and my daughter owns an macbook with a lot of music on it (from which i have put my playlists on my ipod and itouch). I am a PC user and not very savvy with either mac format, itunes, or the droid. Is there a step by step explanation for loading songs fron itunes on the mac to the droid? Posts talk about “just copying a file onto your computer” but I dont even know how to do that! I tried it last night but it wiped out the pre-loaded few songs and replaced it with some dumb comedy bit that i cannot seeem to even erase! Any help would be very appreciated.
Sorry that I have not answered your question sooner, my Internet connection has been flaky the last couple of days, and the blizzard here in Illinois on Tuesday did not help matters any.
I do not not personally use a Mac, but a lot of my coworkers at my day job do. I will ask around and see if they have any suggestions or, even better, if they can show me how to copy files from their Mac to my EVO.
Hopefully I will have an answer for you in the next day or two.
The most tech-savvy of my Mac using coworkers was out sick, but he is now back in and, after him showing me how to do it with my EVO and his Mac, I finally have an answer for you.
1. Connect the EVO to a USB port on your Mac.
2. Choose to mount the EVO as a disk drive from it’s menu.
3. Open Finder on the Mac.
4. Open the device representing the EVO (it was called “UNNAMED” when we tried it).
5. Drag the file that you want to copy to this device (or to a folder on this device).
6. Close the device window.
7. Unmount the EVO.
8. Set the EVO back to charge only.
You should now be able to find the file using a file browser or music player.
If you are still having problems with this, let me know and I’ll try to see what I can come up with.
OK i am good until step 5. Then, I cannot seem to drag any itunes into the “unnamed” file. plus there are many files in the unnamed file – but the dragging and dropping doesnt work in either the main Unnanmed file or the music folder. Arrgh. Thanks for what you can do.
Are you trying to drag from the iTunes folder, or iTunes itself (the program)?
from the folder
I’m not extremely familiar with Macs so I don’t know a lot about their security mechanisms. Are you able to copy files from the iTunes folder to anywhere else?
Does anyone reading this know what could be the issue?
how do I simply stop music playing on EVO when im done, surely this is possible y is so complicated to do? no stop button
What music player on you using on your EVO? The standard music player, Last.fm, Pandora, or something else? On the standard music player, the pause button will stop the music from playing.
All, I have not been successful at all at syncing music to my EVO so am throwing this out for your thoughts…
I ripped about 80 albums to my laptop in mp3 format. When I attempt to sync them to my new 32gb microSD card, only a few of the albums sync successfully. The albums that do sync successfully vary from attempt to attempt, one will sync one time and then not on the next attempt. I have not been able to get more than about 15 albums to sync.
I’ve tried various applications, inlcluding ProAmp, iSyncr, and the direct folder-to-folder copying method recommended by several websites. Nothing seems to work…
Thanks for any suggestions anyone might have.
I’m not sure what could be going wrong if even a direct copy – rather than a sync – is not working. Do you have another device to try the SD card in? I’m wondering if the card might be defective.
Thanks Cball!
I have an issue when I unzip music to my evo its on the sd.card.but not recognized by the music program
What file format is your music in (i.e. mp3, ogg, wav, flac)?
I am even having a problem with my evo detecting certain mp3’s. Its really strange. Most of them it picks up, but others for some reason are on the sdcard, but not detected. Strange stuff…
If you plug the EVO into your computer and mount it as a drive, can you play the MP3s from the SD card on your computer? If not, your SD card might be bad.
I’ve been having a problem loading music on my evo. i’m using a 32gb SD card. I’ve mounted the card as a USB drive on my compute, create a “My Music” folder, fill it with music which is all seen through explore on my computer. However, when I try to access it with the EVO…nothing is there, even the folder is gone. Same thing happens when I put the SD card directly into the computer. Fill it up…take it out, put it in the EVO and nothing is there. I’m going to copy everything off the card and try to reformat it in case the card is bad?
I know this may sound like a stupid question, but are you sure that your were browsing the SD card and not your phone’s internal storage?
Pleased about the telephone. Good value for the money.
I realize the posts about the Evo not playing some WMAs are old, but this will almost certainly be due to DRM (copy protection). At least some versions of Windows Media Player add DRM to WMA files you rip, even from your own CDs. This will prevent them being played on anything other than the computer used to rip them. The setting that does this can be disabled, it’s somewhere under the Tools-Options menu I believe, but it’s been a long time since I’ve use WMP, so I might be wrong about the location.
The issue I am having with my EVO is that it does not remember the point of a playlist after I stop the music and use the phone for other things or just put it away. When I go back to the music app (the default app that shipped wither the phone) it just list all my music, alphabetically (with most artists listed as Unkown Artist – kind of annoying, but I can live with that.
The music on my phone is in MP3 format. All of it ripped by me, or converted from legal DRM-free downloads. I like to arrange my music into playlists so I can listen to a partiular bunch of songs when I am driving or running. I am also studying for a tough certifification exam (CCIE, if you are interested) and I have audio lecture playlists on my phone. It extremely frustrating to keep losing my place in the lectures!
Has anyone run into this? Does anyone know of a third party player that behaves differently?