Cowon's gotten
some rather mixed reviews in the past for their line of
iAudio
DAPs, but the outlook seems mostly positive for the upcoming hard drive-based
iAudio6, with Anything But iPod
finding very few flaws in the diminutive player's design, features, or performance. Especially impressive is the
1.3-inch OLED screen, which gets high marks for both color depth and clarity -- ABi calls it "simply
brilliant" -- and makes watching XviD-encoded movies almost bearable on such a small display. The iAudio6, which
we first spotted at CES, can handle
up to 4GB of MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC, or WAV-encoded tracks on its .85-inch drive, but it's the drive that leads to one of
the few knocks on this model, which is a noticeable lag time between operations. Other nice features include USB host
capability for device-to-device file transfer with other UMS-enabled hardware, software that automatically tags certain
tunes with the corresponding lyrics, line-in and voice recording, and surprisingly powerful output that can drive even
large headphones. If you don't mind a bit of a delay when recording or changing tracks, or a bit of eye strain when
watching your flicks, then the iAudio6 sounds like it'll make for a solid purchase whenever it becomes available
Stateside.
[Thanks, James]
posted May 2nd 2006 1:30PM
4GB on something decently small, and pr0n capable? Why the hell not.
Then again, if the nano goes video and 10GB, im there. nanoPr0n!
This is damn close to exactly what a DAP should be
I still cannot wrap my brain around this obsession with micro screens to watch video and at 4:3 no less. Dumb.
Gay....why not just buy an iPod video, more space, bigger screen, less gayness
why not buy an ipod, yeah go ahead and buy some overused trinket, forsake all sense of personal style, go with the flow, everyone else is buying it, why not you?
Make it white and put an embossed apple logo, then you would not be calling it dumb or gay, huh?
Go on sheep, buy your ipods because there can never be somthing better.
I'll give you an excellent reason why an Ipod just won't do in comparison to this. FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec). As opposed to mp3's, FLAC encoded files lose none of their original audio glory and yet still manage to be half the size of a wave file (ok, still big). If you have a decent set of headphones the difference between a 256 bit mp3 and FLAC is significant. To my ears a whole new dynamic and clarity becomes available that is completely stripped by mp3, acc, etc.
Moreover, Cowon makes excellent equipment and they deserve more recognition.
Go ahead and buy an ipod... get you whopping 2 years of battery life out of it and toss it!!!!! That has to be the worst investment ever. i know someone who had a nano he got for Christmas and the battery already stopped working!!!!!!!!!