[February 20, 2006]

The Orange County Register, Calif., Gadgetress column

(Orange County Register, The (CA) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Feb. 20--IAUDIO X5 BY COWON

--Purpose: Portable music, tiny videos, voice recording, yadda, yadda...

--The lowdown: Ever since I recommended a Creative Zen to a friend who is a complete technoboob, I've only given thumbs up to the iPod. I thought he'd like the Zen because it worked well with his music service. But the Zen's software completely confused and frustrated him on his Windows 2000 computer. He bought an iPod and has been happy ever since.

I like the iPod, but I don't love it. I can't believe an iPod mates with just one computer. You lose all of its music files if you dare share it with another computer. Even the iTunes software could use better drag-and-drop features when moving songs to the iPod.

My search for an easy-to-use MP3 player continued. Then I heard from Cowon America, a Korean company with its U.S. headquarters in Irvine. Its star player, the iAudio X5, received a nice write-up from tech site C/NET. The iAudio X5 has everything you can think of: a 1.8-inch color screen, movie/music/photo playback, voice recording, FM radio, plus 30 gigabytes of storage (60 GB and 20 GB versions are also available).

The case is a solid, matte black with chrome accents -- none of that cheap plastic often found in no-name electronics. And it comes with all sorts of cords and accessories -- earphones, a line-in recording cable and USB cable to transfer photos directly from certain digital cameras.

The real test, of course, was whether I could figure out how to use the iAudio X5 without saying Aaarghh!!

Simple answer: No. I plugged in cables, read instructions, downloaded new software. After a few weeks of sifting through menus, rolling my eyes from frustration and waiting for more software updates -- I think I've figured this out.

The JetShell software for the computer is dizzying. It opens five "windows" onscreen, plus a menu bar.

But if you spend time learning what each window represents -- files on your computer vs. files on the iAudio, a download list, media player -- it's not difficult. Drag-and-drop files from "my computer" to "iAudio" to move music.

But in what I'm calling A-Really-Giant-Headache category, the player's built-in mini USB port does diddly when connected to a computer via the USB cable. Instead, abandon common sense. You need to attach a plastic adapter to the player's base. Only then can you transfer files from PC to player. The adapter also has the only power slot to recharge the player's battery. That's one critical piece of plastic.

Another ARGH moment was finding the main menu. The default menu is the "Digital AV" menu, which lets you pick what you want to listen or watch. But to get to the main menu, don't follow the instructions to push the toggle button downward. That just scrolls through the song files. Only when I was listening to a song did the instruction work.

For videos, the color screen is tiny -- less than 2-inches . But that's the same size as my iPod photo. If you have time and don't mind learning, the kit includes software to convert videos to work with iAudio. It took forever, and it's complicated, but I managed to convert clips from a music DVD to iAudio. There's also software to broadcast your tunes on the Internet and do the usual music player stuff, such as burning and ripping music from CDs.

Verdict: The iAudio X5 will be hard to use and hard to figure out for most. I can't recommend this to my friend, the technoboob. Cowon needs to improve the software so nontechies can figure this stuff out easily.

However, it does the job if you have the patience to learn and happen to be tech minded. This could be better than your iPod. For those people, consider this because it costs $10 less (street price) then the video iPod and includes more and does more.

But my search continues.

--Price: $379

--Best: Nice-looking, sturdy player that does most of what the iPod video can do, and a few things more.

--Worst: Software is a chore to plow through. Not friendly to consumers. A few inconveniences, such as requiring a separate attachment to transfer files, hurt the product.

--Available: Amazon.com, $280; JR.com, $290; CowonAmerica.com, $379 special includes docking cradle

--More info: iaudio.com

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]

Discussions: