One of the pearls of the K Desktop Environment is the Amarok audio player. It looks more similar to Itunes than Winamp, but without the tie-in to the Itunes Music Store and the fairly conservative functionality. It seems my quest for an allround music player has found a new winner!

Looks
The program looks a bit like itunes, but without the greyness. Most of the screen is taken up with the playlist view, with appropriate buttons on top for saving, loading and searching. The rest of the window is taken up by an alternate window which is used for displaying information on tracks (the "Context tab"), playlist management, collection management, file management and media device management. One switches between these views with the tabs on the left side, and some views have sub-tabs, which are located at the top of the window. Color schemes are easily downloaded, and the context area can be modified apart from the main program.

Tie-ins
Amarok is tied in with MusicBrainz (mp3 tagging site), Amazon (album covers), last.fm (stat and social networking site) and, more recently Magnatune (indie music label). Content these services helps populate the context window with album covers, related artist info and info. If you have a last.fm account, song data is automatically uploaded. Most likely you'll also be able to approach your mp3 player directly through the Devices tab.

Interface
Takes a little getting used to. The workflow is somewhat different compared to other players. You import your collection, and then have the choice of loading tracks into the playlist view or defining "Smart Playlists". Keep in mind that after you fill the playlist you still have to save it. Clicking on any media in the collection or file windows will append said media to the loaded playlist. On the other hand, this type of workflow simplifies things somewhat compared to the "alternate realities" of itunes playlists.

Polish
Amarok offers an astonishing level of polish compared to most GNU/Linux programs. The nice fadeouts, the consistent design, the extremely helpful messages and informative panels, it just blows everything else out of the water Windows-side. Hopefully it'll be ported someday! :)