iAUDIO I7-16RD 16GB Portable Multimedia Player Red

I was lucky to chance on someones review on this, and caustiously ordered it to replace my cramped but venerable iFP-iriver 790.

Stuff I look for and loved in this player:
1. Excellent sound quality a little better than my old river.
2. Auto-off timer during play---useful for sleeping with it on.
3. Hold funtion still allows you use the volume and ffw/rew keys if you wish.
4. Cool swing-touch control that let's you scroll thru music quickly. Some have complained that this is too sensitive, and it is. But I am one of those people, who liks to have their mouse/trackpad on maximum speed & acceleration.
5. Fade-in: that slowly increases the volume of music on first play. Useful for getting shocked with sudden loundness for my weak heart.
6. 40-60 hours battery life. Woo hooo!
7. Some cool music effects: BBE that improvies quality without coloring the music.

Stuff I'd have liked but not deal breakers for me:
1. only a single playlist supported,
2. can't synch song play frequecies (so no support for scrobbling and last.fm users will be dissapointed),
3. firmware-upgrade requires data backup & restoration,
4. Cowon doesn't supply a case.

I haven't tried the supplied earphones since I prefer my Grado SR-60 at home & Sony MDR-EX90LP on-the-go.

Highly reccomended!

Anybody who reads my reviews or visits my websites knows that I am partial to the Cowon iAudio products. I've owned at least a dozen, including the 4 GB and 8 GB versions of this unit. The sound quality of the iAudio 7 may not be "true audiophile" quality, but it's about as close as you're going to get for under $700. For most earbuds (I normally use Ultimate Ears super.fi 5s) and open-air headphones, the power output is more than adequate. The EQ functions also offer an amazing range of flexibility in compensating for headphone deficiencies. But if you're going to use a better headphone (like my Sony MDR-SA3000s), then you really do need a quality headphone amplifier. This is not a deficiency in the iAudio 7; I'm not aware of any portable media player that will drive the Sonys even as well as the Cowon products. But you simply have to be realistic. I use a C&C XO headphone amp and get excellent results.

Three other very positive features need to be noted. First, the iAudio 7 will play several file formats that many others will not, including OGG and FLAC. Second, the DRM restrictions on the player are very generous and you normally don't have any problems loading any files that you have created yourself. Third, the battery life is absolutely phenomenal...doubtless the best I've seen.

However, there ARE downsides to the unit. The controls and user interface are not only too sensitive, but they're also not very intuitive. If this is your first Cowon unit, allow some extra time to get used to them. Also, the USB transfers on the 16 GB unit are noticeably slower than on the 8 GB unit (which probably remains your best value.)

One comment on the lack of "true playlists"...I don't care. Frankly, I grew up listening to vinyl albums and it would never even occur to me to make a playlist. I don't use them and never have. This is a big difference between those of us who grew up in the 60s and 70s and those who now download a single track at a time. Call it the "AOR Syndrome" or whatever. I simply think in terms of album sides. When I convert music to put on my player, I rip the entire album and catalog it that way.

Overall, I'd rank this as perhaps the "second best buy" in a portable media player. The 8 GB unit is still tops in my book, primarily due to the faster USB transfer speeds. And do yourself a favor...either use a higher efficiency set of headphones/earphones or invest in a decent headphone amp. This unit is very, very good, but it's no miracle-worker.

UPDATE: A recent firmware upgrade and a FAQ on the Cowon website have addressed the issue of slow USB connection and file transfer. I'd now rank this unit at least half a star higher.

Good: Small, sufficient memory to hold my entire meager collection, FM tuner
Bad:
1) Battery life is much overestimated - ? 15-18 hour max when either on tuner or playing music.
2) buttons more awkward than one would anticipate
3) FM tuner is weak and 'wanders' off of listed wavelength/frequency
4) Interface with PC is slow.
5) Takes a long time to boot/startup sometimes - I have waited over 10 minutes on occasion. This is not why you buy an MP3 player.
6) When 'hold' is used, then turned off, the reverse scroll function is continuously engaged. This results in jarbled rewind of songs, or continuous tuner scrolling. Device has to be rebooted after being hard-started to stop this problem. This process takes over 30 min. Pain in the neck.

I would NOT recommend this product until the software glitches are resoundingly altered.

I wasted good money on this item.

I love iAudio products. I currently have the iAudio X5L and was wanting to buy another one but can't find one. They've been out of stock for so long. So I decided to purchase the I7. It's a great product, however, I can't stand the touch buttons. I constantly have to use the "Hold" button (which will probably wear out soon probably). If my hand or anything happen to brush against it, my settings change. It's quite frustrating. I would have given this product 5 stars if it had buttons that I can push and memorize so that I can push the button without having to look at it. With touch buttons, you can't do that. Your hand will always brush against a touch button you didn't want to touch. I should have gotten an iAudio U2 but it doesn't have as much storage.

Pros: The sound on this is amazing. I am a DJ and profesional electronic musician so I am sensitive to this. My sister's Ipod Nano gets low-end distortion when you use the EQ (wtf is that?). But this unit sounds brilliant. It has a whole host of EQs and settins to make your mix sound wonderful.

Cons: The playlist implementation on this sucks balls. I wanted to smash this thing to bits. I have previously owned an iAudio U2, and even that was better than this. At least you could bookmark things and choose a song order other than alphabetical/numerical. This one is horrible.

Also, the interface isn't that great. It's clumsy. Yeah, it looks cool, but I would prefer some physical buttons rather than this touch crap. Sometimes it messes up and acts weird.