Home > Consumer Reviews > iAudio X5 20 GB Portable Multimedia Player with FM Tuner & Voice Recorder (Black)

Cowon? You may not have heard of them (yet) but they make the best audio (iAudio U2) and audio/video (iAudio X5) players on the market. Their products put them in the same league as Sony and Apple.

Positives:
The first thing you notice about the iAudio X5 is the high-quality feel of its aluminum shell and how everything fits together perfectly, with solid controls.

The size is about the same as an Ipod Photo, but with the addition of a video display. The TFT type LCD is not the best you can get on a portable player, only 1.8 inches and 160x128 pixels, but the screen is bright and clear. Video playback at 15fps is good considering the display size.

Navigation is from a 5-way joystick, which is as good as Ipod and more comfortable than just about everything else.
FM reception and audio quality is excellent, close to gapless MP3 playback. Charges over both USB or AC adapter is a plus.

Negatives:
Does not support ID3-tag database.
Cannot view photos and hear music at the same time.
No video recording
No external volume controls
No video output!

Conclusion:
At its current price, the iAudio X5 has no direct competition.
I can only think of two reasons NOT to buy it:
1 - you want a TINY mp3 player (get a JetAudio iAudio U2)
2 - you want to output videos to a tv (still waiting)

I'm not going to write anything silly like I-Pod killer because I've never had an I-Pod and wouldn't really know. I know I didn't want to own the same thing everybody else had and I also know most of my friends have I-pods and they're all now jealous of my iaudio X5.

Cowon is very well known for its top audio quality, but in this player they went all out and threw in a ton of goodies. I often switch to an FM station when I'm tired of listening to my mp3s and have recorded plenty of music right off the FM tuner. You can find better video quality elsewhere, but this is not a video player. It is a high end music player with video ability thrown it to boot.

Great battery life, very good firmware downloads, the best audio quality, video capabilities, FM tuner, voice and FM recorder, and all this in a cool package and awesome price made this decision a no brainer. Oh yeah, plus you don't need any silly program like Itunes or whatever to put in or take out mp3s or other files from the player, just hook it up and you can scroll through all your files using Windows Explorer! That right there did it for me!
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Having recently purchased the cowon iaudio X5 (30 GB) I would not be so fast as many others to give it the label of "ipod killer".

Let me first tell you why I bought it: The X5 has slightly better sound quality than the ipod, which provides (according to many people who have used both, which I have not) for a noticeable difference when listening to the two players on comparable sound systems. It also supports far more file formats than the ipod, which means for me that I would be able to rip my CDs with either lossless sound (FLAC) or with better sound than MP3s for about the same bitrate (OGG). All the various audio enhancements (BBE, Mach 3 bass etc...) add to the overall sound that the X5 gives you leading, in the end, to the X5 being a better sounding player than the ipod.

The features are also great extras, but as I'm sure you know about them already, I will not go into detail about them. I will however, tell you that the voice recording (the feature I most anticipated) gives a great deal of feedback, although it is a lot of fun to use. (If you need good sound recording, you can always buy an external mic anyways).

The X5 is also a slightly smaller and (in my opinion) better looking player than the ipod and is scratch resistant instead of scratch prone. However, the X5's small size means that it requires an adapter for charging, USB, line in and line out. If this adapter is lost, your player is useless. Getting a replacement is especially difficult if, like me, you live in Canada, and Cowon America will not deliver one to you.

The fact that the X5 is also plug and play is great, allowing you to download files off computers without installing any software or partitioning the hard drive (which the ipod requires you to do in order to use it as a portable hard drive).

Now for why I'm not satisfied: Far from having "solid controls" and "a 5-way joystick, which is as good as Ipod", the iaudio's physical controls are one of its biggest problems. The joystick is tiny and hard to manoeuvre, and even from my short use of the player I can tell that using it for long periods of time would be cause for annoyance and even border on causing mild physical pain. Although I have not heard of anyone else having this next problem, mine also shipped with a broken joystick, which would stick while moving it to the left. The play, record and power buttons are also on the side, which is slightly less convenient than the ipod (although I didn't find this to be much of a problem). Compared to the ipod and its click wheel (which also gives faster scrolling speed), the X5's controls are inadequate.

The iaudio's other largest problem (the killer for me) is its interface. It is hard to navigate and cannot be searched by artist or album (this is a problem that cowon said they would change early August but hasn't) so you have to organize everything into folders on your computer by hand. Ideally, it would be good to do this anyway if you really respect your music collection, but if you have a lot of music on your computer this can be EXTREMELY time consuming. I have also heard it can be done with third party software but haven't looked into this yet. It also displays the file name (eg. 02harvest.mp3) instead of the song name (Harvest) which can be a real inconvenience if your songs have messed up or inconsistent filenames (as many of mine do).

The last thing that I will say is that some of the MP3s on my X5 skipped. This was very odd and likely the result of corruption in the MP3s themselves (though an ipod played the same MP3s fine, though they were loaded onto the ipod earlier and may have been corrupted since then).

I have other things that I could write about the X5 vs. ipod debate, but I think that I've been fairly thorough.

I think it really comes down to one thing: Take the X5 if you want a player that will perform better; giving you better sound and features. Take the ipod if you want something that is easier to use; giving you better physical controls and simpler software.

I did an extensive research before buying MP3 player in 20GB category. Every time I returned back at Iaudio X5. For US market the name is not much familiar but it is superior to its rivals at the same price.

First of all, I do not want it to compare with the Apple iPod but media has given so much attention to iPod that it has become inevitable. So, just compare it with newly launched Apple photo iPod 20GB, Besides all that apple offers (photo color screen and MP3 player), it is lighter, it has voice recording, in-line recording (i.e. record from your LPs, audio cassettes, from online resources etc.) excellent FM reception and FM recording, The special BBE and 3D sound effects are great for enhancing quality of music.

Video: Earlier, I was a thinking that video on such a small screen will not be of any use but it is more than sufficient for personal viewing. This feature catches eye of everyone around you.

USB Drive: One another best thing is you do not need to install any software to connect it to a computer as you have to do in recently lauched iPod and sony hd5. Thus, you can use it as a mini hard drive and can transfer data from one place to another without bothering that the another computer should have drivers installed by using mp3 player and subpack included.

Text Readability/Organizer: The text reading feature is very useful. You can put down important phone numbers, things to do this week, grocery list and much more to use it as some sort of organizer.

FM and FM/Voice Recording: The quality of FM reception is amazing. In fact, you can even set timer to record your favorite program when you are not there or working on something important. This even has alarm function which you can set to start your favorite FM or MP3. The recording quality is good and it starts recording instantaneously.

USB Host: If your camera is USB TO GO compatible, you can even download pictures directly from your camera to your iaudio and reuse your memory of camera again. No need to buy larger size memory card. If you do not have such camera, this function not of much use to you.


However, it will take couple of days to get used to joystick and its functions but I think with so many features on it, one can manage to spend only half an hour using its manual to get familiar to take full use of your player.

It identifies ID3 tag but it stores according to folder which I personally feel convenient to use as I can arrange music in different folder on my computer and then can transfer. However, those who use ID tag for structuring their music collection, can use software to convert music to folder structure. Also, Iaudio is very regular in giving updates of their firmware so may be this feature is on its way.

If you want only mp3 player feature you can buy other players available, but if you are looking for feature filled digital mp3 player, iaudio x5 would be your best bet.

Having owned two of the best hard disk-based MP3 players (in my opinion); Apple's iPod and Cowon's iAudio M3L, one of the them has provided me with a whole lot more functionality than the other - yes, the iAudio.
As a travelling musician and producer, the M3L has performed to abilities that iPod or any other DAP could simply not do. On-the-go stereo encoding in various bitrates, direct radio encoding.. just having a radio player helps when you don't want to listen to 20 gigs of music! The battery too, oh yes, now that is brilliant.
Cowon had to build on their success of the M3/L models and they sure have, the X5 has got everything and MORE. Beautiful colour screen with MPEG video playback is brilliant for encoding music videos and possibly movies too. USB on-the-go which again is brilliant from Cowon.

I have to finish off with two things, the sound and the overall satisfaction that the X5 provides.

As a music producer, I have a very good ear for sounds and output quality from sound sources. Compared to the iPod, the iAudio X5 provides a very 'rich' sound, clear and 'full'. If anyone has both players, you'll know what i'm talking about.

Finally, overall satisfaction. The M3/L needed an onboard screen so that it could be compared to the 'norm' of most MP3 players. The remote was slightly fiddly, but worked great and was easy to get around. The X5 has been upgraded in this department, it is you could say 'complete'.

Cowon - WELL DONE!