I can now say that I own three Cowon music players. Last summer I purchased a Cowon iAudio U5. The device recently became disabled through no fault in the Cowon design (the issue had to do with a piece of software on my computer). Before this even occurred, I had been considering ordering an iAudio 7 for day to day use, and keep the U5 for use at the gym where it was proving itself admirably. So, I decided to order the iAudio 7, use it for the gym temporarily until I could check into getting the U5 repaired.
Just after I had ordered the 7, I found the iAudio 9 and thought that might be a better player for me than the iAudio 7 so I ordered it. Due to a mishap, the order for the iAudio 7 wasn’t canceled, so I ended up with both devices. I resisted opening the iAudio 7 for several days thinking that I would return it. Well, after playing with the iAudio 9 I decided I wanted to see how the iAudio 7 compared to the 9. What follows is my notes and observations about each of the devices.
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The iAudio 7
This is one small device (2.75″ long by 1.25″ wide by 0.75″ thick) for the punch that it packs. The sound is wonderful, battery life is excellent (going on third or fourth day without a recharge).
There are a few things that are trimmed down over it’s brethren iAudio 9: not as many equalization settings. But, personally, this doesn’t bother me all that much: the settings that are available are more than adequate for listening to many different types of music: jazz, classical, pop, rock, etc. And, then there are use adjustable settings if that isn’t enough presets for you.
The radio works well. I use it over the weekend to listen to a couple of radio shows (yes I still listen to broadcast radio, especially when I don’t have a device that can stream a radio station).
I haven’t tried the video support. Honestly, I can’t see trying to watch a program on the postage stamp sized (1.5″) screen. I know that it should work, however, the appeal for that isn’t there. And, as I understand, this is a bigger drain on the batter.
The player is not designed to display album art. That’s okay with me. On a portable player I am more interested in listening to music than I am in looking at album art. Given this limitation, the display itself is excellent. It’s quite clear and easy to read, and gives me all the information I want and then some: current time, battery status, file format, track name, artist name, album name, volume setting, time into a track / time remaining, equalizer setting and more.
The controls are well placed: on switch, menu button and volume controls on the right side of the device, a navigation slider, play / pause, and an overloaded button on the front, set into the player in a way that’s mostly easy to identify the controls without looking at them. The USB port and reset button are on the bottom under a cover. On the top is the headphone jack, and the surprise item for the player: an external microphone jack.
One of the features of the Cowon devices I feel is often overlooked: the ability to record. You can record a radio broadcast, or via it’s built in microphone, or in this case via an external microphone. I’ve used the radio record feature on the Cowon iAudio U5, but I haven’t played with it on the 7.
The only thing I will say I don’t like about this device is the sensitivity of the controls. At first I found myself scrolling through a list of albums or artists multiple times because I over-shot what I wanted to select. In a few cases I accidentally paused the player while trying to start a track playing because a single click registered as two clicks. At first I got really good at selecting what I wanted to listen to and locking the device before I accidentally hit the wrong control. However, after looking around the settings, I found a way to adjust the sensitivity down, and that seems to have helped a bit.
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The iAudio 9
I don’t think I had seen the iAudio 9 before I ordered the 7. I had, however, seen the Cowon S9 and had it on my Amazon wish list for a few months now. The iAudio 9 is a trimmed down version of the S9. It is still designed to be a music and video player, but adds some additional features over the iAudio 7.
The flash interface is the same as the one used on the S9, however the control layout and menus bear a striking resemblance to the iAudio 7. Same navigation slider, play / pause button, and a multi-function button on the front of the unit. The menu and on / lock switch are on the right hand side, while the volume buttons are on the left side. As with the iAudio 7, I had to adjust the sensitivity of the controls to make it easier to use.
The unit itself is a cross between the iAudio U5 and the S9 in terms of size: the screen is a 2″ TFT LCD screen (same as the U5). While the over all device is a little larger than the U5: 95mm tall, 43mm wide, and 8.9mm thick, which is smaller than the S9, but larger than the U5 by just a little bit.
I’m not certain about watching video on the 2″ screen. it seems better than the 1.5″ screen on the iAudio 7, but still is fairly small. I’m still thinking that the 3.3″ screen on the S9 would be the best choice for videos. However, the 2″ screen on the 9 is easier to read, and makes navigation a bit easier than it is on the iAudio 7.
One of the bigger features that separates the iAudio 9 from both the U5 and 7: dynamically building a database of the media files on the device. This is something a lot of people seem to want. Until recently, I didn’t want to have this “feature”. However, I recently started re-tagging a lot of my files in such a way as to make it easier to navigate them using the meta data, so this feature may become useful. (Some day I will write a mini-rant on meta data and file tagging…)
Some additional features of the iAudio 9 over the U5 and 7: image viewer, document viewer, flash game player, wall paper, theme-ability, just to name a few. One of the bigger items is the video-out handling. This requires a special video cable, which I didn’t buy so I haven’t tried it. A surprise feature: a built in speaker. So, even if you don’t have your headphones, you can still use the device. I’ve used the speaker once or twice, but it isn’t something that is a major selling point. It maybe useful in a pinch if you want to have friends listen to something, or you want to listen to a voice recording for transcribing notes, or something. But, I don’t think it would be all that good for, say, listening to a podcast or audio-book in a car.
There is another feature of the iAudio 9 that separates it from the U5 and 7: the inclusion of Podcast Ready. This is a set of software designed for downloading and managing podcasts. Personally, I haven’t tried to use it. I do see, however, that it is made up of Lesser GPL V2 and Apache licensed components. I tried to go to the website, but it doesn’t appear to be up at the moment. Personally, this isn’t all that big of a feature for me, I have my own podcast catching system, and know there are many other applications that are worth of using (such as gPodder, which many in the Open Source community swear by).
One feature that the iAudio 9 misses over the smaller iAudio 7 is an external microphone input. That’s really kind of a surprise as i would have thought that they would have tried to include all of the features of the iAudio 7 in the iAudio 9.
A Couple Common Features
There are a couple of features that all of these devices have in common: one is quite useful, the other not so much. And there is a third item that seems to be a small issue with iAudio 7 & 9 players.
The first is the ability to store book marks. This is really useful for listening to audio-books or podcasts. If you are listening to something long, but want to switch to some music, or something else without loosing your place, you can just bookmark you current location. The bookmarks are automatically placed in their own folder. When you want to go back to your location, you just navigate to the folder and select the bookmark you want.
There is also the ability to build play lists of music files. You can select files and add them to a play-list. The play-lists are stored in their own folder. The problem with this feature is that it doesn’t seem to be all that useful. You can’t pre-load a play-list, you have to build it on the player. This is a rather cumbersome way to build a play-list. IMO it would be better if you could just build a set of m3u files, or something similar, and upload it to the player.
One more thing I noticed about the iAudio 7 & 9: the file transfer seems to slow down as you load more files on the player. I suspect this has something to do with the flash memory / drive in these units (both of these are 16gig units, whereas my U5 is only 8gig). It seems to consistently happen after you cross the 8gig boundary… Again, this is something that doesn’t tend to bother me, but if you are going to load the device, you might plan on giving it some extra time to transfer the files if you are adding a lot to it.
Summary
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The Cowon music players have been a fantastic replacement for my lamented iRiver H320. I’m overall impressed by the features of the devices. The iAudio 9 surpasses the U5 and iAudio 7 in overall flexibility and features, in fact possibly having a few too many features for some users. Fortunately, most of the extra features can be ignored for users that aren’t interested in them.
All of these players sound fantastic. Honestly, I think they sound better than most of the other devices I’ve listened to: including iPods, iRivers, and Sansa devices. When I got these players, I tried the default earphones that came with them, however I wasn’t a big fan of the design of the earphones, even though the sound quality was quite good. For now, I am going to stick with my Sony earphones / headphones…although I am investigating higher end earphones as a possible future addition — especially for listening to music.
I have the feeling that I’ve barely scratched the features of the iAudio 9. I know there is a timer, sleep function, and there appear to be quite a few more things that I haven’t played with yet. I suspect that eventually I will find a few new things to use it for.
However, at this time I suspect my usage of these devices will probably be something like this:
iAudio U5: if I can get the device repaired it will still be my choice for use in the gym. The controls are easier to use without looking at the display. With the bookmarking feature it’s easy to switch between music and audio books as the mood strikes. And, if something really bad happens to it (like getting smashed with weights), I won’t feel so bad about losing it as it would be less expensive to replace.
iAudio 7: I think this will be kept mostly for use in my car for playing podcasts and audio-books. A simple low power transmitter to the radio in my car should be sufficient for this activity. Bookmarks for storing my place will make it easy for using it on trips to and from the office without losing my place. The other major use I think I may have for this player is recording some meetings. I have times where I want to take notes regarding some items, and it may be easier to transcribe the notes from a recording. With a small external microphone this might be a really good candidate for this activity. This will also be my gym player if I cannot repair the U5.
iAudio 9: this will probably become my main music player. The extra controls equalizer controls, and the easier to navigate screen make it the best candidate for this function.
So, basically, I have use for all three players. Which player is best for you? I think the biggest determining factor would be the price. For under $100 (USD) the iAudio U5 is the one to get. If you want to go over $100 (USD), and you want more memory then either the iAudio 7 or 9 should be considered. If you need a physically smaller player, the iAudio 7 is the best choice, otherwise the iAudio 9 is the better choice for it’s navigation and numerous extra features.
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Really nice post. Very Informative and helpful post. thank you.
Cowon’s iAudio 7 & 9 at Cerebral Rift