First Look: Digital Media Player Is a Class Act
Cowon IAudio X5 packs plenty of features into its small, elegant case.
The Cowon IAudio X5 is an all-around class act, from its stylish black case to its bright color screen. Weighing in at less than 6 ounces, and measuring about a half-inch thick, this hard drive-based digital media player packs plenty of features into a small package.
The player lets you play back MPEG-4 video, record from the built-in FM radio, and record from a line input. You can also use the device as USB host, which allows it to copy files from other USB devices such as digital cameras without requiring a PC as the intermediary. And at $300 for the 20GB version, the Cowon IAudio X5 is very well priced (a 30GB version costs an additional $50).
The compact case, which measures 4 inches tall by 2.4 inches wide (comparable in dimension to a typical Palm PDA), is dominated by the 1.8-inch LCD screen, with a joystick underneath that handles the volume and menus. Play/pause and record buttons reside on the side of the device, where you'll also find the power and hold switch.
On the bottom of the X5 is a port for connecting what Cowon calls the "subpack." The subpack is integral to using many of the device's features: It's a small plastic dongle, with ports for power, USB, line-in, and line-out. You need this subpack to recharge the device from a wall socket, which is a bit of a pain--it's small enough to easily get lost.
The X5's controls are a pleasure to use. The joystick makes navigating through a large music collection easy, and the player supports M3U playlists created in programs such as WinAmp. You can also create playlists on the device itself. As an audio player, the X5 is very good, with bright, clear sound and the ability to drive even larger headphones. It's also very versatile: The X5 can play back MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, and WAV files, though it doesn't work with any of the online music subscription services at the moment. However, Cowon say it plans to offer an update that will offer support for Microsoft's Janus Digital Rights Management system, which is used by music services such as Rhapsody.
In my informal tests, the X5's battery life was good: I got around 13 hours of audio playback, a result that is helped by the fact that the screen automatically turns off if the controls haven't been touched for a user-defined period of time. Playing back a video pushed the battery life down to around 3.5 hours, but you probably aren't going to want to use the screen for that long: Although it is clear and bright, with good color, at 1.8 inches--about the size of many digital camera LCD screens--it isn't big enough for extended viewing.
If you do want to play back video, you'll need to run your videos through the included JetAudio software, which converts the video, dropping the resolution down to 160 by 128 pixels; a 45-minute show compressed down to 60MB. Supported video file formats include .avi, .asf, .mpg, and .wmv. JetAudio also can rip audio CDs and organize digital media, but it's somewhat difficult to use for these tasks, and it lacks the documentation to guide you.
The handy USB host function allows you to connect a USB device (such as a digital camera) directly to the player and download the files to the X5's built-in hard drive. The ability to use the device as a host is a nice touch, but it's a bit cumbersome: You have to go into one screen, select and copy the files, then switch to another screen, and paste the files where you want them to go.
The USB feature is also finicky: The host connection didn't work with some devices I tried it with (such as a Canon Digital Rebel camera and a JVC camcorder); the X5 failed to recognize that those devices were even connected. Cowon doesn't provide a list of tested devices, but a group of users is creating its own list of compatible devices here.
It's also a pity that the X5 lacks video-out. When you're traveling, a video-out port would be a nice way to watch video or look at pictures on a TV instead of the unit's small screen.
Nonetheless, these minor quirks aside, I found the X5 to be a great little digital media player for the price--one that packs a lot of features into a small, easy-to-handle package.
Richard Baguley, special to PC World
