Cowon's 4GB iAudio6 DAP reviewed
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]
