Product Description
iAUDIO is a multi-functional next generation portable digital audio device that plays MP3 files, which is a new format of digital compression that reduces the size of files tenfold while maintaining CD-level sound quality. It can be used to record lectures or meetings, and also for listening and recording FM radio broadcasts.With an ultra-compact and fashionable design, the iAUDIO implements the highest quality of sound and possesses a wide variety of capabilities and features. Also provided are JetShell, which is software for downloading files and encoding MP3 files, and JetAudio, which is the world's greatest integrated multimedia player.
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iAudio M5 20 GB Metal MP3 Player Silver
- Electronics: 0 pages
- Publisher: Cowon
- Label: Cowon
- Studio: Cowon
- Average Customer Review:
 based on 6 reviews
- Sales Rank in Electronics: #66543
Avg. Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: Love it. 2006-12-10
Comment: I got this player a good few months ago, and I love it. It has froze on me a few times, but nothing "Reset" couldn't fix. I, for one, am not into being able to play videos, or view photos, so this product fit my needs perfectly.
UPS:
-Great sound quality
-Lots of features (sound enhancers, voice recording, etc.)
-Clear, crisp LCD
-Very scratch resistant. I have dropped this several times, and there are only a few scratches on the body, and none on the screen.
-Durable
-Great battery life. I can go days without recharging it.
-Supports many different file types
DOWNS
-No video/photo storage
-No color LCD
-Playlist doesn't work on mine. I can only make one on the actual player on D-PLAYLIST, and even then, I can only make one.
-Only one large folder for all your music
-Doesn't support mp4s.
-Music only sounds great through headphones. Experience isn't nearly as good as it is with speakers.
-Many people may find it a large player
-Battery is not removable without dismantling the entire player.
Despite it's ups and downs, I love this player. It's a good size for me, although others may disagree. It fits in my pants pocket, which is great. The downs, I have found, don't affect me very much. I simply wanted a play that had good sound quality, and stored a lot, and this player is great for just that. It's a sturdy little thing, and I love it.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Luck of the draw? 2006-05-06
Comment: I had an iaudio M5, and absolutely adored it for an entire week before it decided to take a dump on itself. One day, I turned it on and the poor thing just got confused. It ran from song to song playing a few seconds of each, while Japanese kanji and Korean characters ran across the screen where the English titles once scrolled by. I took it back and exchanged it for another one. The second one lasted two days before it suffered the exact same fate.
Was it corupt files? The format is drag and drop and that's what I did. The files I ported over were mostly ripped from CDs with a few Napster leftovers. But I've never experienced this problem using the same songs on my iriver or my JVC MP3 players. So what gives? I haven't a clue. Maybe it was a bad batch. But in any case, I no longer have an M5.
This experience is months after returning the iAudio X5. The problem with the X5 was that it's claim to last up to 14 hours didn't pan out. The internal ion battery barely lasted four hours. That's not long considering I needed it for 90 minute stints several times a week.
The iAudio continues to recieve great reviews, and it is a nifty little device when it works. Hopefully, my situation is rare and others will enjoy their players for years.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Great player with flexibility 2006-03-20
Comment: I bought this player because it plays .flac files and has a 20G hard drive. I also bought a pair of Sennsheiser HD202 headphones ($25) to go with it because I don't like earbuds. My listening has only been on the HD202's.
One thing that sort of baffled me at first was there was no manual... just a quick setup guide. The user manual exists on the device itself. It comes with a cd, but it's just player software and I didn't load it since I have what I need to play files. It may add to the usefulness of this device, I don't know.
When you plug this player into your PC via a USB cable, you get a new drive like a hard drive under 'My Computer'. From there, there are some folders for your use and the user manual can be found.
I simply copied folders of music to this device and started playing. I was amazed at just how many folders/albums I could put on this device. .flac is 60% the size of a .wav; not a huge amount compared to mp3. I've put about 50 albums (700 songs) on my player and it's almost full. This is great for me. I can put it on random and have a week's worth of music for me....(listening 4-8 hours a day) BTW, a 4 Gig ipod Nano costs $20 more than the 20G M5.
My entire audio library is .flac so, having the ability to use that was key for me. If you use something else like mp3, aac, or whatever, you could save a lot more.
The sound quality is very good, but I have no frame of reference for these types of players or headphones. Is it as good as my reference system? No. But it is as good as it needs to be to hear clearly and accurately the music that I enjoy while working.
I had to make a lot of adjustments from the default settings. There was bass-boost and BBE and EQ settings that made things sound unnaturally boomy and peaky at first. In order to get to these settings, you must press and hold the play button.
There is a small learning curve with this device but not much for me, a computer-type person but not a player-type person. Also, I like the little joystick better than the iPod's controller.
I'm very satisfied with the iAudio M5 and would recommend it to anyone.... especially if you need sytem or file flexibility since it works with Apple, Linux, and Windows OS's and does .ogg and .flac. Very cool!
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: iAudio X5's little brother - a review for Lyrics enthusiasts...and all 2006-03-17
Comment: I previously owned a Zen NX 30GB player but since Creative doesn't offer the Lyrics function, for my new player, I had to look elsewhere. I considered, the following:
- iRiver - although the reviews are very good, it looks too clunky and industrial for me
- Olympus M:robe - looked good but a bit expensive and the reviews were rather disheartening
- iPods - great reviews but expensive (though it's gone down considerably since I bought this), not to mention abundant - it's enough to make me scream, "bring back originality, please!"
So I aimed for iAudio; I'd never heard of it before but the reviews in Amazon raised my interest. Although the M3 looked great, fumbling around in my bag for earphones and a remote didn't appeal to me. Then I came across the X5. The reviews were incredible but I didn't want to have to pay for the Video or Photo capabilities. Watching music videos on my computer is so insufficient (ever notice how plasma screens are getting bigger not smaller?) so I for one cannot understand why doing this on an even smaller screen is what's driving the market for mp3 players today. So, what I really wanted was something between the iAudio X5 and iAudio M3.
Hello M5!
- The sound is astounding that I now rarely reach for my B&O earphones (even my friends who own iPods and Creative Zens agree with me on this)
- there's no need to install a driver (very good for those who seldom use computers and want things to be as simple as possible)
- no need to fork out more money for a USB micro-drive when this works as a separate hard-drive
- voice-recording is excellent for meetings and lectures (you can even set the bit rate for it)
- in-line recording - I can connect it to my Cable TV and record the music channels to my iAudio
- play-time goes beyond 14 hours
- available upgrades of firmware and software for the player itself, JetAudio, LDB Manager and Jetshell
- it supports ID3 tagging but doesn't organize music this way; it does it through a folder-structure style (so if you like viewing your music via artist, album, genre, etc, then you may find this irritating)
- it has pre-set equalizer settings or you can set it to your own preferences too - and the best thing is that this doesn't lessen the life of the battery
- file transfer is FAST
- you can read lyrics while listening to the music - my favorite feature!
About the Lyrics, I initially thought 2 things:
- Since I've previously tagged my mp3 files I thought reading lyrics was just a matter of uploading song files into my M5 and nothing more
- I could then use the M5's 'joystick' to scroll through the lyrics
I was wrong. Lyrics need to be loaded using Cowon's LDB (lyrics database) program (which you can download from http://eng.iaudio.com). This can be done either automatically (you click a button and it searches through the server) or manually (for unpopular or non-English songs, you can add lyrics yourself). The way it works is that the player itself scrolls through the song without any action from the user. Although this is quite a cool function, it also means that for manually loaded lyrics (which is for most songs by the way), you will need to sit in front of your PC, use LDB, then periodically press the "Set Sync" button to specify the timing for each line of the song. This is EXTREMELY TEDIOUS for most, but since I actually love reading lyrics and I'm very particular when it comes to tagging my songs (I even fill in the Biography tab of my mp3 files), this isn't much of a step away from the amount of time I spend on tagging my files so it suits me perfectly! PS: the manual doesn't cover how to load lyrics to files so go to http://eng.iaudio.com, then click on Support > FAQ and search "How to use LDB Manager" to find out how the program works.
My only gripe is that the carrying case is sold separately (unlike Creative Zen where it's included in the package) and only comes in one colour and style (kudos to iPod for having so many to choose from). You can however go to www.noreve.com for optional cases however this can set you back a fair bit so until such time when iAudio can provide more of these cases, my `iPaq' case will have to suffice. It may not have as recognizable a look as iPod, but with its amazing sound, countless features and long battery life, you realize IT'S ALSO COOL TO BE DIFFERENT!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: Works with Linux !!!! 2005-12-28
Comment: Fabulous digital music player!! I use Linux (Ubuntu) and this connects perfectly--it mounts as an external USB storage device. It also plays more than just the standard mp3, wav and wma formats, but also supports free formats like ogg and flac. If you use Linux and want a 20 GB HDD digital music player I recommend this one highly!
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iAudio M5 20 GB Metal MP3 Player Silver
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