Software

The software that came with the SoundsGood includes the built in audio player, the Good Desktop, the MusicMatch Jukebox, and some free MP3 songs. The build in audio player has on screen controls to select tracks, forward through tracks, change the play mode, change the treble and bass, and display information on the current track. The lay out is easy to use so you won't be stumbling around looking for something. The Good Desktop is how you transfer files from your PC to the SoundsGood. You can import MusicMatch play lists or individual MP3 files to the player. The files that are currently on the player are displayed as well as the files you want to add. The total memory being used is also displayed as well as the time it will take to transfer the new stuff to the player. The changes you make don't take effect until you hit the "Move It" button. In addition, you can also export MusicMatch play lists so you can quickly get that blend of music you created without having to open MusicMatch. The Good Desktop also allows you to search your PC for MP3 files. MusicMatch itself is a decent audio player. Personally, I prefer Winamp and I just use MusicMatch for my portable devices. It has all the features you'd expect from an audio player and more. You can record audio CDs using MusicMatch from play lists you make. There is also support for plug-ins for various portable MP3 players to send files to the device. Unfortunately, a plug in is not available for the SoundsGood but you can open up the Good Desktop from MusicMatch. One nice thing that the plug ins allowed is the automatic setting of the bit rate, so you can lower the quality and fit more songs into the player. Since the SoundsGood doesn't have a plug in, you have to do that manually before hand and then transfer the files to the player using the Good Desktop. Not as convenient but you can still do it. That's about it for the software side of things.

Performance

Well in terms of an MP3 player, the SoundsGood definitely performs on par with other stand-alone players out there like the RIO 500 or the Soulmate MP3 player. Not to sound silly but the SoundsGood really sounds good... In terms of battery life, the specs say around 10 hours of continuous listening which seems about right. With the Visor in sleep mode, I listened to songs all night and still had over 20% battery power left in the morning. It's very power efficient, which is good since you're draining Visor batteries as you go. The external play button has an LED in it that lights up when a song is playing. Although the LED probably doesn't drain that much power, you can still shut it off or make it brighter if you want through the software. The included player software does a pretty good job. You can fast forward through songs that are playing, or search through the tracks on the SoundsGood. Transferring songs to the player is very fast, but Mac users won't be happy because there is no Mac support at all. 64 MB takes about 4 minutes to transfer over. You also need to have a USB connection to do it, which probably isn't so much a problem. Most everyone probably has a USB connection by now, and if they don't then it's time to upgrade.

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