What exactly is AMR? How can I play these files on my computer? What does it do? Read this article to learn all about AMR file format.
AMR is Adaptive Multi Rate; it’s an audio recording file format generally used in mobile phones. Originally the development of AMR files was from the Ericsson (Sony Ericsson) team which now has become the widely used mobile extension on Sony ericsson cell phones such as SE KE 750i. In other words, if you have received a file that ends with .AMR extension, it’s nothing but a recorded file.
Why AMR files?
Shouldn’t we use popular extensions like Mp3 or WMA? What good does the AMR file do? Because both MP3 and WMA files occupy large size , while AMR takes up very small amount of disk space. The AMR algorithm is built such that .amr files provide better audio compression on mobile phones. In other words, if an MP3 file is of 5MB, you can have the same file compressed to AMR and it will be less than 1MB — although there will be a loss of quality which is negligible on your cell phone.
Consider AMR file similar to .FLAC, which is yet another well-known file format that is actually lossless (no loss in quality). Read this article to learn more about Flac files.
Playing .amr files on my computer
Note that AMR files are playable only on mobile phones, so if you want to play them on your PC then you have to convert amr to MP3 to WMA format by downloading suitable amr tools such as “AMR Player” or “Mobile Amr converter.”
Mp3 players like Winamp & lite mp3 players like Foobar or 1by1 cannot open amr files. However, opening AMR files is possible both on Windows and Mac OS platform that have Quic time player by Apple or the Real player installed. Double-click on the AMR file, or right-click and open with Quicktime or real player.
