Digital Trends

Cowon iAudio X5 20GB October 6th, 2005 | by Ian Bell

Getting the X5 up and running is a pretty simple chore. You can either use the included JetAudio software package, which will give you a player and a media browser, or you can plug the X5 into your PC and use it as a mass storage device. Simply drag and drop the music or video files you want into the appropriate folder (or create your own folder), and then browse the songs using the player menu – it’s as simple as that. If you are using a MAC or a PC with Linux installed, you will have to forego the included software since it does not support your OS. This is no big deal, because the X5 is still seen as a hard drive and you can just drop the files you want onto it that way.

If you have a digital camera, then all you need to do is set the USB mode as PTP from the camera’s menu and plug the camera into the USB host port on the X5. What this allows you to do is transfer your images directly from your camera onto the X5 without the need of a laptop or PC. This is great for photographers out in the field that need storage, yet do not want to carry around a laptop with them. Most of the newer digital cameras are supported. You can click here for a complete list. 

The built-in text and image viewer looks great and is simple to use. The 2-inch LCD is not particularly huge, so make sure you are showing your images to people with good eye-sight. Jokes aside though, an image viewer is pretty much a given feature in most of today’s MP3 players. One feature that we would love to have seen is an A/V output, so you can show images on a television. The Apple iPod photo and Creative Zen Vision both allow you to do this, giving much more purpose to this feature. Also, when you are showing pictures in the slideshow function, you cannot play music in the background, making for a fairly boring experience.

Video playback looks sharp on the X5’s LCD, but again, you are not able to output the video to a television, so you are limited as to what you can do with this feature. Videos must also be converted to an MPEG4 format up to 15FPS. You can either use the included JetAudio software, or a 3^rd party solution. If you are a Linux or MAC user, you are out of luck here unless you have your own software. Also worth noting, is that converting videos to the appropriate format can take a very long time, especially if the movie is a large one. The video side of the X5 is more of an afterthought it seems, rather than serving an important purpose. 

Where the X5 really excels, is in its audio playback. Cowon Audio is known for manufacturing some great sounding players and the X5 certainly did not disappoint in this department. Capable of playing MP3, OGG, WMA, WAVE and FLAC, the X5 is one of the most versatile players on the market. Once again however, for every positive, there seems to be a negative; the X5 is not compatible with any online music services. So, you better download an MP3 you can own and do what you want with, otherwise it’s not touching the X5.

Audio playback sounds fantastic on the X5. You can either use the JetAudio software to create play lists, or simply keep your lists in M3U format which will work as well. With the lyrics display feature, you can actually view the lyrics while the song is playing; a pretty cool function if you ask us. There are 7 basic equalizer settings to choose from: Normal, Rock, Pop, Jazz, Classic, Vocal, and a user setting. The X5 also supports BBE, Mach3Bass, MP Enhance and 3D Surround DSP settings; an audiophiles dream. We were able to tell a big difference between the EQ settings, as you should. Audio quality is crisp and clear sounding, with surprising bass response from the stock ear buds, and with a SNR (signal to noise ratio) of 95dB, you can turn the volume way up. The integrated amp is capable of 20mW of power to each ear, which is much better than most media players. The stock ear buds which are manufactured by Cresyn, sound pretty good but you are in for a treat if you have a real high-end pair from Etymotic, Sony, Shure or Sennheiser. One caveat to playing back music on the X5, is that the player is not capable of showing album art, and there can be a 1 to 3 second delay sometimes while skipping tracks. Since the X5 has a built-in anti-shock function, we are going to chalk up the delay to the caching of the music, but if you travel a lot, this is worth it. It’s just one of the downfalls to having a hard drive based player. 

Image Courtesy of Cowon America