Another great thing about the LCD display is how much information is viewable at once. As tunes were played, the amount of information on screen was staggering for such a small display field. Easily readable were things like album name, song name, playback progress bar, audio enhancement selections and volume and battery levels.
As far as the physical controls went, this was somewhat of a mixed bag. The buttons and two dials were easy to use, though there was a little bit of a learning curve figuring out the specific uses of some of the multi-function buttons in relation to the on screen menus. Also, as mentioned before, the jog dials have the potential to be bumped.
The player draws its power from a single AAA battery. Cowon claimed up to 20 hours of life under normal operations (i.e. standard playback of MP3s with minimal use of the backlight). Tests showed the battery died out at 16 however, which falls somewhat short of the company’s statements.
Other:
- Player can act as a portable mass file storage device, meaning non-music files can be copied over to it and carried between computers.
- JetShell, the music management software which comes with the iAudio 5, is a powerful tool for transferring music to and from the player. Though it is not needed for this since Windows will recognize the player as a drive which can have music dragged and dropped into, it still adds some nice touches.
- The headphones which are included with the player provide a decent sound quality, but are uncomfortable to wear after awhile.
- The user’s manual provided in the box is really more of a getting started guide. To unlock the full features of the player, you need to view the full manual in PDF format on the software installation CD.
- The colored lights which flash on the LCD during playback or menu selections can be customized through a menu selection, which is a nice feature.
The Bottom Line:
At the end of the day, Cowon’s iAudio 5 is definitely a player which, despite some shortcomings on the operations side, stands out from the crowd because of the number of features, high quality sound and ability to customize so much. That being said, the retail price puts this product at the high end of a range which holds a lot of worthy competitors. Does this mean then that the iAudio 5 is worth your attention? I would say a reserved yes.
