Straight out of the box: smartphone(s) that can...

April 19, 2011 4:13 PM

Which current smartphone in the market plays FLAC files, has crossfade, has 10-band equalizer, and can either grab folder.jpg/cover.jpg from the same folder or display embedded artwork of any size straight out of the box?

I am tired of converting FLAC files down to lossy formats and having to resize large album art down to 500x500.
 

posted by querty to technology (8 answers total)

The Nexus S plays FLAC out of the box. Not sure about the other stuff. Many Android phones come with FLAC support (and you can install an app on any that don't, but you specifically said out of the box so the Nexus S comes to mind).
posted by wildcrdj at 4:27 PM on April 19, 2011

There is a FLAC Player for iOS devices named, oddly enoug, FLAC Player (and another called Golden Ear). But it's not default software—you would need to buy it. I don't think either supports equalization, but will support embedded cover art—not sure if there's a resolution limit, but it would surprise me if there were.
posted by adamrice at 4:51 PM on April 19, 2011

I'm not aware of any Android device that does 10-band equalizer out of the box, although any newer model will play .flac and display albumart. That said, PlayerPro, a $5 download, does support 10-band equalization, provided you download the additional DSP Pack.
posted by ofthestrait at 5:07 PM on April 19, 2011

Having spent a significant amount of time researching portable devices that play FLAC, I feel pretty confident saying that such a device does not exist (and if it does, it wouldn't have adequate storage for any quantity of FLAC. )

However, I am happy to be proven wrong, so if this this magical large-capacity FLAC playing, equalizer-having phone does exist, I will be purchasing it immediately.
posted by namewithoutwords at 6:36 PM on April 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

From some quick testing, Mortplayer played flac, but only has a 5 band EQ. PlayerPro has the 10 band EQ in the DSP Pack, but didn't find my test flac file. In the PlayerPro forums the dev says that flac is only supported on phones with native flac support, which mine may not have.

In theory if the Nexus S plays flac out of the box, it should do so, with 10 band EQ, using PlayerPro, but I don't have one to test it on. One problem with the Nexus S is I don't think it takes sd cards like most Android phones, so you can't add extra flac storage space.
posted by markr at 7:59 PM on April 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

I can't speak for album art but PowerAMP for Android will do FLAC and 10-band equalizer for $5. Compatible with Android 2.1+. There's a demo too.
posted by pooya at 9:28 PM on April 19, 2011

The Samsung galaxy s Will play flac, though i haven't loaded mine yet (only have the 16g and haven't got micro sd's yet). I had an Iphone previously and would recommend the galaxy. More info: http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-s/117422-galaxy-s-flac-tags-unknown.html
posted by bigZLiLk at 10:12 PM on April 19, 2011

Yeah, Nexus S => no SD card slot & therefore limited storage space.

Does "OOB" allow installing a 3rd party media player? If so, then PowerAmp is $5 and will give you Flac support and a 10 channel equaliser on any modernish Android phone.

(On preview: oops, beaten to it!)
posted by pharm at 4:48 AM on April 20, 2011