July 21, 2006 3:06 PM PDT
Cowon iAudio X5L (30GB)
The good: Small size; video player with 260,000-color LCD; customizable wallpaper; FM radio; line-in and voice recording; photo viewer; text-file reader; excellent sound quality; reads photos directly from digital cameras; compatible with OGG and FLAC formats, as well as subscription WMA tracks.
The bad: Must plug in an adapter to attach AC, line-in and USB cables (however, the built-in side USB port handles camer transfers and MTP subscription downloads); so-so control layout; can't autosync music with a PC; can't browse by artist, album or genre; many video files need to be converted to play on X5; no slide-show mode or music while viewing photos; no autoscanning presets for FM radio.
The bottom line: The great-sounding Cowon iAudio X5 looks like an iPod killer on paper, but this palm-size music and video player suffers from mediocre music browsing and some key design missteps.
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