I received my new N800 yesterday to replace both my 770, and Archos Gmini400. I have also dropped 2 16GB cards into the beast to hold most of my music. I mainly listen to music in random mode over the whole library, so obviously the more files on the device the better. I would also like eyecandy to ward off the iPod and iphone fanboys at work, as I often have the device on my desk plugged into speakers, and I like coverart displayed when playing, and I really like the album art scrolling on the ipod/iphone. I have briefly tried Canola2, Kagu, and UKMP along with the default media player.

Canola2 - looks very pretty, but a bit on the sluggish side on 2008, seems slower than the pervious version on my 770. I really like the fact that there is a random mode for the entire library. I'd prefer the cover art to be a bit larger. I also found that it does not like to run at the same time as Maemo mapper, I think that they are both reasonably hungry. Didn't like the fact that it does not seem to like my cover art. I use folder.jpg, and albumart tags on most of my files which works great with the archos, window media player, Mythtv, and slimserver.

Kagu - very nice, bit of a pain to get to the random mode for all tracks though, doesn't display the album and track name clearly on the cover art screen. they are there but realy small on the bottom right. Again seems a bit sluggish with lots of "loading" messages between menus. which like the track info is a bit irritating after a while.

UKMP - Love the cover art scrolling. Hate the fact that it scans everytime it starts, takes a while with my setup. I cannot fathom how to randomly play all my tracks, and when I start to play a track from any album, it just stops, although the app is easilty killable.

Default Media player - nice and lightweight. ticks all the boxes apart from the eyecandy - cos it does look basic. Not a problem in the car as I usually have maemo mapper running, but on the desk, it's not very pretty.

So what we need is a music player with a similar but prettier interface to the default (themable probably), with a albumart view like UKMP's, now playing like Canola's but with larger coverart (minimize the background, or have the art as the background!) and a quick option to randomly paly from the whole library, like a party, or radio mode. I can see a home page applet, which would function like a Squeezebox, knowing about all the music, and changing the background to the relevant coverart when there's a song change. Damn, wish I could code!

regards

Gary