Cowon IAudio 9 8 GB Video MP3 Player

Key Features

The Cowon iAudio 9 is the third music player in the critically acclaimed i series and features several improvements over its older siblings. Cowon has significantly trimmed down the iAudio 9, making it the slimmest media player in the series. The User-Interface has also undergone a facelift, with menu navigation feeling less cluttered. Cowon has strived to make the iAudio 9 more than your average music player by including several useful features like an eBook reader, Image viewer, FM radio and Flash games support.

Design

The outer panel of the iAudio 9 is crafted from hard matte plastic which makes it scratch resistant and less prone to fingerprints. The top half of the Cowon iAudio 9 is dominated by the 2 inch LCD screen (240 x 320 pixels), while the touch sensitive controls occupy the bottom half. The glass display on the Cowon iAudio 9 seamlessly merges into the rest of the chassis to create a sleek monolithic design.

The control pad on the Cowon iAudio 9 is a combination of capacitive touch keys and tactile buttons. The capacitive buttons are context sensitive; their functions depend on whether you are on a menu or the Now Playing screen. Except for the volume rocker and On/Off, all the buttons on the iAudio 9 are touch sensitive.

Battery and Storage

Cowon iAudio 9 is powered by a USB rechargeable Lithium Ion cell. The battery takes 1 hour 40 minutes for a full recharge and gives an impressive 29 hours of audio playback. The music player comes with 8 GB of internal storage space which can accommodate 1600 songs (approx).

Functions

Cowon has long been the music player of choice in the audiophile circles, deservingly so, considering the sheer number of sound enhancements the Korean firm manages to cram into their music players. The iAudio 9 delivers well-balanced acoustics with equal weightage on both end of the frequency spectrum. The 5 band Equalizer in the Cowon portable media player can be tweaked to push in that extra low end thump or to sharpen up the higher notes. The Cowon iAudio 9 features the BBE sound enhancement, which utilizes algorithm based processing to increase the overall audio quality.

The Cowon iAudio 9 supports Flash Lite applications and games, to keep you occupied during those long commutes. The FM radio supports auto-tune facility and can record broadcasted songs in MP3 format at 256 kbps. The built-in Voice recorder in the iAudio 9 can be adjusted to different sensitivity levels to capture audio signatures in varying ambient noise conditions.

The Document reader in the portable media player features several useful inclusions like the ability to change font size and background color. There is a TV out port with which allows you can hook up the media player to the big screen. The supported file types include MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV, FLAC and APE (audio); AVI, WMV, Xvid and ASF (video).