A little while ago, I finally gave in and bought myself a music player. Now I find it hard to imagine how I coped all these years without one — I did not have a music player since my MiniDisk player from about seven or eight years ago.
I bought the iAudio X5L with 30Gb of space as part of a fall special sale, and even though it’s still a bit on the expensive side, I am glad I did go with the X5L as opposed to the X5 or models by other manufacturers. Here’s my analysis, which isn’t all positive:
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The iAudio players can play more formats than any other player I’ve seen, including, of course, Ogg Vorbis and Flac.
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The casing is sturdy and smooth; the player is a little heavy but not too heavy. The display is gorgeous, although I would not watch videos on it even though I could. All in all, it feels and looks great.
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The software seems archaic at first, but after a little use it’s quite enjoyable and intuitive to use. It does not compare to the scroll wheel of the iPod when scrolling large directories, but it does quite alright. I really appreciate being able to browse while listening. Also, the display contains a lot more information than on any other player I’ve seen.
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One quickly gets used to the joystick; however, considering that the right direction is the one used the most, it starts to go loose after only a bit of usage. This has not really been an issue so far, though.
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The X5L has only 30Gb of storage, as opposed to the 60Gb you can get with the X5. However, the L in the product title refers to long-life, and the battery in the X5L lasts about twice as long as the one in the X5. I just took the device for a spin in the alps and after two 5 hour train rides of continuous playing, and another 6 hours of playing at the cottage, the battery was still around 40% full. If I ever run out of space, I could exchange the internal 1.8” harddrive for a bigger one.
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I can use the device to record from microphone or line-in (using an adapter) directly to MP3, and the microphone’s quality is quite fair. This is great!
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The sound quality is good, but all the sound enhancers, like BBE and Mach3Bass are useless; better leave them off.
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When connected to a computer, the harddrive appears to the machine as a regular USB storage device, so no software is required to maintain the data on it.
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I am a little annoyed by the fact that the USB connector on the device can only be used to connect cameras and the like to store data on the X5L’s harddrive. In order to dump data onto the device, you have to connect a little dongle and then attach the USB cable there.
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It does not appear to be charging while connected via USB. I am not sure about this yet though, since the configuration menu offers an option to enable and disable charging via USB.
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I’ve been told that firmware upgrades aren’t rare and that they’re easy to apply.
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It comes with two years of warranty (as opposed to the default one year in Switzerland).
Altogether, the player isn’t perfect, but it does what it should (and more) quite well. I can warmly recommend it. It comes in at a slightly higher price than the iPod, but quite frankly I am happy to support the manufacturer Cowon for its product line and philosophy of supporting open formats and caring for the customer.
NP: Porcupine Tree / Tarquin’s Seaweed Farm (Side B)
