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COWON iAUDIO 7 MP3 Player
Introduction
COWON's iAUDIO 7 is a little music player available in 4/8/16GB capacities about the size of a Bic lighter. It looks a little stout but it's thinner than my wallet. It's slick in the way that Korea always seems to get the cool stuff first, and despite the name, it's got absolutely nothing in common with iAnything. It plays all the formats--I mean all of them, it'll read sheet music if you fold it small enough to stuff into a micro USB connector--and batteries that'll kick even if you wear them at work, and to and from work, for a week. The 1.3" screen is clear and bright, and still, it's not like many people even know who COWON is, let alone what an iAUDIO 7 is. So then, no, it's not an iPodKiller. If it was, people would probably know about it. But there's more to this hardware than just being cheaper than the corresponding iPod, it does a lot of things differently, bringing major enhancements to portable audio hardware, things that you'd have a hard time finding with most stereo equipment. So why hasn't this thing made its way into everyone's pockets? Well, it's more than just a lack of COWON awareness.       First Impressions The player's fit and finish is top-shelf. The glossy fun-size player is designed to ward off scratches with stealthily-raised bumpers on the front and back of the player, and the visible red aluminum frame is more than a band of metal lookin' good, it's the rugged chassis of the device. The iAUDIO 7 is held sideways, like a 110 camera, if you remember those, with both hands. The buttons are all there for righties, the touch-sensitive section on the face with its back/ stop/ pause, select/ play/ menu, and slider buttons. The remaining controls, volume, power/ hold, and mode buttons are tactile, metalicized plastic buttons on the top, with a pinhole microphone. On the left side there's the headphone and mic jacks, and on the right, behind a cell phone-style rubber cover is the micro-USB connector, for power and synching, and a very small, hard to press reset button. The bottom and back of the iAUDIO 7 are featureless. Or rather, their feature is chillin'.         Included with the player is a set of alright ear buds, a USB-to-micro-USB cable, and the software CD, which isn't necessary for most things iAUDIO. The player will use your music's file folders as you copy/ paste, drag & drop them onto it; as far as any computer is concerned, whether it's running Windows, OS X, or *nix, this thing is an external hard drive. Which is one of its major features: COWON's players are platform-agnostic and very flexible. They support .mp3, .wma, and .wav like any good player, but also OGG and FLAC music formats. The postage-stamp display will also play Mpeg-4, AVI, and XviD. If you're really bored, it supports .txt files for reading (conveniently, its manual is available within the player) and you can show off little tiny photos, too (in .jpg).
Page 1: Introduction, First Impressions
Page 2: Navigation, Playback and Software Page 3: Extra Features, Conclusion 
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1 User Comment 1 - Posted by
amyt
on November 23, 2008 - 6:31 am I just purchased the iaudio7 and cannot seem to get the downloaded audiobook in WMA to play. Any suggestions? Amy Add Comment To add a comment without being a member, you may omit the password field, but you must enter your name (or nickname) along with your comment. * Denotes required fields. |
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