Perhaps the latest Cowon iAudio 5 will make it into some decent volume sales and dislodge the Apple logo from the top of the MP3 player pile, James has kindly sent us this review of the iAudio 5 which is due for release in the UK in the early summer.

Cowon are famous for their displays and the iAudio 5 is no disappointment as its' put up front and centre as the main selling point of the device, the claimed 1000 colour backlight is pretty cool and we're sure someone has bothered to count the variations to check they are telling the truth. The 128 X 64 LCD screen is used to best effect with many lines of text and symbols squeezed in, it does look a bit stuffed with so much information on screen but in a goofy way its kinda cool.

Operating the Cowon iAudio 5 is nice and easy too with a 3 way rocker switch on the top edge of the unit which controls playback and there is also the important mode button which decides what the unit is doing, on the lower side there is another rocker switch, this one controls the menu system. This was my first time with a Cowon product and it felt well built in general with good use of materials and of course that stunning screen, while pushing the rocker switch I did notice that if you push it in when at an angle it felt a bit rough like is wasn't meant to be pushed in unless straight on.

The menu system on the iAudio 5 is fairly simple too with a hierarchy that you soon master, the mode button controls what the unit is doing (playback / radio / recording) and the lower rocker gets you through the menu and browsing the MP3 tracks. It's easy to change the display layout too so you can have what's paying now on one line while you browse and queue up the next tracks.

Like many tier 2 manufacturers (that may be a little unfair) they put plenty of toys on the device, there is a 5 band graphic equaliser and a number of  effects like BBE, Mach3Bass, MP Enhance and 3D Surround, 3D surround in headphones? hmmmm not sure what I made of this as it was all quickly disabled to leave the Cowon to just play tracks.

Good job I did that too as audio performance on the iAudio 5 is pretty tight, sure its not stunning but digital audio players rarely are especially with compressed tracks, the tests carried out were with 192kbit MP3 files and Ogg Vorbis at Q9 both sounded good with a decent bass and clear mid range sound. There was a little hiss on a few tracks but as it wasn't present on all music I assumed this was in the encoding, the iAudio 5 will handle WAV, MP3 encoded from  8-320 kbps, WMA 20-192 kbps and my personal choice OGG Up to Q10.

The huge colourful screen only leads me to worry about battery life, the Cowon is powered from a single AAA battery and I couldn't get more than 15 hours out of it despite the manual's claim to 20 hours, I can only assume that they tested with no backlight at all and just built a 20hr play list.

There are 3 models in the iAudio 5 range a 256mb, 512mb and a 1gb version, all get an FM radio which seemed to work quite well and encoding from an onboard microphone and line in socket, it's far more likely you'll get your files in using the Jet audio software and USB 2.0 connection.

I have to admit to being quite impressed with the Cowon iAudio 5 it's nice and small (76.8 x 35.0 x 18.0 mm) and runs from a single battery, the screen is obviously the best point of the device and it's coolness is not to be underestimated. Of course that would all be pants if the Cowon sounded poor or was a nightmare to drive, but it's not in fact my only concern is the slightly dodgy build quality of the battery flap and the USB cover, it just hints at corners being cut to keep costs down.

But how many MP3 players have you seen with a 100 colour display and one that can have a different background colour to tell you which mode it in? perhaps the biggest downside of the iAudio 5 is that you'll want to wear it on the outside which is fine here but in London?

The Cowon iAudio 5 is on sale in the UK and is expected to be priced from £120 (256mb) - £190 for the 1gb version and £220 for the 2gb version which makes it quite a premium over the £99 Ipod Shuffle, but then you don't get a screen or any of the extras with the Ipod.

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