I use the Palm Desktop to transfer MP3s and pictures to my handheld's memory card. This leads to all MP3s being in the same directory, "Audio", and all pictures being in the same directory, "DCIM". Busker will only show a picture with a file name of "folder.jpg", and the picture has to be in the same folder as the music. I transferred one album's cover art to the "Audio" folder using the freeware file manager FileZ. The album art did appear, and looked quite nice.

However, the amount of time it would take for me to move all my MP3s and their associated pictures into their own directories using FileZ would be substantial. Many people use a card reader, and I suspect this would be easier with one of those. Electric Pocket recommends Softick's Card Export II for transferring files. This application makes your desktop think your memory card is a USB drive, and allows you to add, delete, and move files easily right from your computer. For me, though...well, Figure B shows my Geri Halliwell album art with Evanescence's "Going Under" playing.

FIGURE B


Busker's "Now Playing" screen allows you to show the full album picture (shown here), or just a thumbnail. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Busker's sound quality, through my fairly cheap headphones, seems to be the same as RealPlayer's, and both seem to have the same volume level. Both programs often give a noticeable slowdown in playback when switching from one program to another, likely due to the Palm's processing speed.

Playing music tends to drain my batteries quickly. I set my Zire's power preference to shut off in thirty seconds, and then started a song playing in Busker. Five minutes later, the screen was still on. Busker does have a menu item to turn off the screen, but you have to do it yourself every time you want the screen off. I think it'd be better to be able to set a "Turn off the screen" preference, so that it would happen each time. Busker will turn off the screen if no song is playing.

Consistency
Being used to RealPlayer, I expected Busker to function in a similar manner. Essentially, I expected it to: turn my handheld's screen off when the auto shut-off time is reached (while continuing to play), and stop playing music when I press the power button myself. Naturally, they're not the same product, and so there's no reason that Busker has to behave in the same way as RealPlayer. What it does have to do is behave consistently within itself, and it doesn't.

When I pushed the power button on my Zire while Busker was playing, its behaviour was erratic. Sometimes Busker did shut off and stop the music from playing. Sometimes it stopped briefly, and then started up again. This led to some embarrassment at a coffee shop as my handheld burst into an Eminem song at full volume while I was leaving.

Sometimes pushing the power button has no effect at all, and sometimes it just turns the screen off, then right back on. There doesn't seem to be any pattern to what happens when the power button is pressed, which actually makes the situation worse.