Cowon teases iAudio 9 overseas
The Cowon iAudio 9 is an overdue replacement for our favorite do-everything budget MP3 player, the iAudio 7.
(Credit: Cowon Korea)For years, the Korean brand Cowon has steadily churned out some of the best sounding, most format-friendly media players on the planet. And if the latest round of iPod and Zune coverage had you asking "Where's the XviD support for all my torrents of 'Rock of Love'?" then Cowon may have a new player that's perfect for you (actually, it already does).
The Korean version of Cowon's Web site is showing some teaser images and specs for a new media player called the iAudio 9. Presumably a radical makeover of the iAudio 7 (winner of a 2007 Editors' Choice), the iAudio 9 looks to have the same unique diagonal scroll navigation, along with music, videos, voice recording, photos, FM radio, text, Flash, and TV-out capabilities. Specifically, the iAudio 9 boasts MP3, WMA, WAV, OGG, FLAC, and APE audio format support, along with a truckload of video formats, such as AVI, WMV, XviD, and ASF. Which is not to say you're going to want to watch a ton of videos on the iAudio 9's 2-inch screen--but that's where the TV output may come in handy.
Now for the bad news. Cowon offers no indication of pricing, capacity, or release date. We can't even be certain it's coming to the U.S., so don't get your FLAC-listening, XviD- watching hopes up just yet.
(ViaAnythingButiPod)
Donald Bell is CNET Reviews' senior editor for MP3 players and portable audio, and one half of the MP3 Insider blog and weekly podcast. He also likes getting his hands dirty with digital audio tools for musicians and DJs. 
I've always wanted to combine the functionality and form factor of the iAudio 7 with the larger storage of the ipod classic (or just wanted an ipod classic with the features/interface of a cowon product).
With my luck, however, I pretty much guarantee that they'll be using flash storage and it'll max out at 32 GBs. Lame.