| Application: | Mimidi 0.98 | MID-Play 1.0.7 | KarPocket 3.2.1 | PocketAMP 2 | IntelliArt Midi Player | GSPlayer for MIDI 1.16 | HTC Album 2.51 (b 16896) and the current HTC Wizard version |
| Instrument set it's based on; its quality | Its own; by far the worst | Its own; passable to good | TiMidity; good | TiMidity (packed into one file); good | Its own; best | TiMidity; good | HTC; some instruments are REALLY poor |
| Price | free | free | free | free | $29.95 | free | Free (comes on several, for example F-S devices) |
| Memory consumption | Can be installed entirely on storage cards | Can be installed entirely on storage cards | Can be installed entirely on storage cards | Can be installed entirely on storage cards (+ eVB if needed) | Can be installed entirely on storage cards | Can be installed entirely on storage cards | n/a (ROM) |
| Stereo? | + | + | + | + | + | + | + |
| File association? | n/t | n/t | +; automatic | +; must be manually done (if you don’t want to give the app manual paths), works great after that | +; must be manually done, works great after that | +; must be manually done, works great after that | Associated by default |
| Tests (Finland, Doom, MPHG, Demo) | + (passed; really poor instruments!) | + | + (with some serious load delays / fozen GUI’s on some devices) | + (unable to play channel 5 of MPHG!) | + | + | Noisy, unlike other players; completely messed up channel 5 and the bird sounds in the MP midi! |
| CPU usage | 10-20% | 10-20% | About the same as with GSPlayer 1.16 | About the same as with GSPlayer 1.16; it has a peak at the end of each file. Interestingly, it consumes less CPU time at playing finland.mid | Slightly more than GSPlayer with doom.mid (between 10-13%); with finland.mid, less | 5-20% at 44 kHz depending on the midi file | Doom: 7-9% on HTC Wizard; ~12% on the PL720 |
| Compatibility (tested on the PPC2k2 iPAQ 3660, the WM2003SE VGA PL720, the WM5 VGA Dell Axim x51v (A12) and iPAQ hx4700 (2.01)) | Works OK, except for the very frequent waveout problems on all the test devices | Works OK without any problems on all my devices. | Runs tolerably on the PPC2k2 iPAQ 3660 and WM5 x51v. On the iPAQ hx4700, it’s pretty useless because of the frequent gwes.exe crashes. On the WM2003SE PL720, loading the Doom midi takes quite a lot of time and with all the three midi files (not the karaoke ones!), the GUI freezes at the midi selector screen. | Pretty OK, except for the 'unable to switch to the next song" problem | Works OK without any problems on all my devices. | Works OK without any problems on all my devices. | n/a (built-in, can’t be deployed to other devices) |
| Landscape compatibility? | OK | can't display the upper part of its window (using the Blue skin) in Landscape mode; that is, Options will be inaccessible | OK | - (most of the buttons aren’t accessible) | OK | works but can't display the Options screen (not a big problem) | OK (after all, it’s built-in) |
| Verdict | Avoid it | May be OK if you like the instrument set | Good - but ONLY for Karaoke midis, not for traditional ones. | Avoid it | The best if you don’t mind paying for a midi player | IMHO the best free solution | Avoid it, even if it’s built-in - get at least GSPlayer. |