Music, video player and radio that can display still pictures

Cowon's iAudio player.

The iAudio family of music players from Korean company Cowon doesn't boast any "iPod killers" yet, but it has devices that offer more flexibility out of the box than any iPod will deliver.

At the top of the range is the iAudio X5, a thin, black device with a metallic textured case covering a 20 gigabyte hard drive (a 30GB version is also available). It's fronted by a 1.8-inch colour screen and a metal jog dial that navigates you through the X5's reasonably intelligent menu system.

It's a music player, a video player, can display still pictures, has an FM tuner to access radio stations and acts as a fairly good voice recorder encoding recorded audio as mp3 files.

The nice thing about the X5 is how easy it is to set up. Sitting the player on its cradle, which connects to my PC via a USB 2.0 cable, it was instantly detected by Windows XP and installed.

Then it was just a matter of dragging files across to the device in the accompanying Jetshell software program.

The X5 supports a broad range of file formats - .mp3, .ogg, .wma, .asf, .flac and .wav included.

Sound quality is impressive, as good as I've heard on the iPod or the mp3 phones on the market. The first thing you'll want to do is ditch the earphones that come with the X5. Thankfully, the player has a regular earphone jack so I was able to plug in my Sennheiser phones for decent listening.

There's a standard equaliser in the X5 but a couple of other tools can be used to tweak music levels. BBE and Mach3Bass settings can be altered to cut out distortion through the sound range and give a crisper sound.

The X5's colour screen is a little small for watching long video clips, but it does display a clear, bright image, though with some pixilation. Unfortunately there's no video-out function which would allow you to plug the X5 into a full-sized screen and use it as a video player.

The video files are converted to .avi files in the X5's software. I tried converting a number of DivX and mpeg files, about two-thirds of which successfully played on the X5.

If the X5 is the 20GB iPod's direct rival, then the 1GB iAudio has the iPod Shuffle directly in its sights.

It calls itself the iAudio U2, an effort maybe to rain on the parade of the U2-branded iPod. It shuffles your tracks for you, and has an FM tuner and voice recorder. It also looks very smart, a small black device the size of a stick of chewing gum.

The ugly jog wheel appears again but the menu system is easy to learn. Battery life for both the X5 and U2 was up over the 15-hour mark, though heavy video and menu usage on the X5 will consume battery life quickly.

I'm impressed by Cowon's music players. I appreciate the flexibility they give in terms of file formats, options for interacting with the PC and multiple listening options. In terms of design they've a little way to go - there certainly needs to be a better central control to make it easier to scroll through song lists.

Cowon's 256MB and 512MB music players differ greatly in style and frankly are pretty ugly. Given their small flash memory capacities I wouldn't bother with them anyway.

You'll pay a premium for the X5 - the 20GB Apple iPod Photo is much cheaper at $528. But the ability to view video, record voice and listen to radio stations is well worth forking out the extra $80 for.

The iAudio U2 is a tad expensive compared with the 1GB iPod Shuffle, which sells for around $250, but has the tuner and recorder.

Cowon iAudio X5 Price: $608 (30GB, $691).

Pros: Wide support of file formats; nice sound; battery life.

Cons: Clunky joystick control; no video out.

Herald Rating: 7/10

Cowon iAudio U2 Price: $352.

Pros: Lightweight; good audio quality; battery life.

Cons: Clunky joystick control.

Herald Rating: 7/10