As a GNU/Linux user, I wanted to get an MP3 player that didn't require special "media manager" software to load music. I also wanted a player that could play open formats such as Ogg Vorbis and FLAC. And being a geek, any other nifty features would be nice.
The Cowon iAudio U3 turned out to be the perfect match. Physically, it is about 50% larger than an average USB drive in each dimension. It has 2GB of storage, and mounts as USB Mass Storage. For an MP3 player of this size, it packs an amazing feature set.
It can play MP3, WMA, WAV, Ogg Vorbis, and FLAC audio files. It can view MPEG videos (transcoded with very specific settings). It can view JPEG images. It can read plain text files up to 240KB. It can receive FM radio. It can record to WMA at 32, 64, 80, 96, or 128 kbps from a surprisingly sensitive internal microphone, a stereo line-in port next to the headphone port, or from the FM radio. It can wake up at a pre-programmed time as an alarm clock, or to record a radio program and then shut off afterwards. And like a true geek's MP3 player, everything is customizable. You can change the wallpaper of the Now Playing screen, twiddle a generous handful of often useful audio enhancers, switch between a standard folder browser and an iPod-style "Music Library".
But you probably knew all that already from the specs. What you're probably curious about is the audio quality, and how well all those dozens of features work. As to audio quality, it is amazing from a non-audiophile's (my) perspective. Twice, I have crisply heard the backup singers in songs that I didn't even know had any. The audio is very rich, and the enhancers (especially the "BBE", which purports to recreate harmonics that lossy encoding throws out) can help if used in moderation.
The video feature is absolutely awesome to see on such a small player, but it has some limitations. The video is transcoded to 160x128 at 15 FPS (or less), and the audio is transcoded to 128 kbps CBR MP3. So it's going to be a little skippy, and the audio will be decent but not crystal-clear. The actual performance of the video on the player is so-so; video converted with Cowon's proprietary JetAudio software plays swimmingly (although I've only tested a few videos), but video converted with mencoder can easily hang the player.
The JPEG feature seems to work well; I only tested it with the included demo images. It can show images one at a time, or in a 3x3 grid, and can zoom in to the center of an image (but not scroll around inside it). Images loaded relatively quickly, but bear in mind that I was viewing images provided by the manufacturer.
The text feature works great; it's even got the ability to jump to a certain line in the file. There's not much to say about it, but it works while you're playing music, and displays a generous seven lines of tiny text. It doesn't do word wrap, only "character wrap", but I've written a small C program to "pre-wrap" text files.
The FM radio is okay; the reception is not great, and the tuning is slow until you have presets programmed (there's no way to enter a frequency, nor jump by anything larger than 0.1 MHz). The FM recording works as advertised, up to 128 kbps WMA, and starts without an appreciable delay. It would have been nice to see a feature like the Archos Ondio, where recording starts "5 seconds ago" by keeping a 5-second buffer, but that would, of course, eat more power.
The voice recording is great. The encoding goes up to 128 kbps WMA, which is quite good. The default is 32 kbps, which is a little muffled; I recommend at least 64. Most importantly, though, the microphone is excellent. It is astoundingly sensitive, to the point where it's important not to touch the player during recording, since moving your fingers along it will make loud "whoosh" noises in the recording. I haven't tested it, but the player offers a voice-activated recording feature. Combined with the high bitrate, it makes for a much more useful voice recorder than most MP3 players offer.
I haven't tested the line-in recording, but, as it uses the same encoder as the FM and voice recording, and has a direct connection to the input, I would expect that it would work just as well. The player has an "Auto Sync" feature that will automatically split tracks at silent points.
One notable feature is Bookmarks; during playback of any audio or video file, you can navigate to the root of the file browser, enter a "virtual" folder called Bookmarks, and select "(Add Current Point)". Then, you can return to that point instantly by going back to bookmarks. A couple of quirks: all bookmarks for a file are listed under the same name, so marking chapters in audio books is probably impossible; when returning to bookmarks in video files, the image may not display until the stream reaches a keyframe, which could take up to 2/3 of a second.
Now for the subjective things. The player itself is nicely designed; it's all plastic -- mostly black, with a stripe of chrome trim around the edge. It isn't the kind of thing that's going to look dorky. The interface is usable, although it will work better for geeky types who seem to have an inborn leg up in understanding new gadgets; the high-res color screen certainly helps by allowing iAudio to display large, unabbreviated menus and comfortable directory listings. The joystick makes for a much better UI than just a set of buttons; it is somewhat stiff when pushed in, but pleasantly soft when pushed up, down, left, or right. Having two separate jacks (headphone and line-in) next to each other can be confusing, but the benefit of not sharing one jack is that you can listen to the radio as you record it, and know when to start and stop recording.
A few complaints: It should record in formats other than WMA. MP3 would be more practical (there's a bigger market) but would probably require license fees; Ogg Vorbis would be great, but less practical. It should allow the user to play music while it's plugged in to the computer. (You can, but only if you turn off the USB driver on the computer so that the computer ignores the player.) The "Add to Dynamic Playlist" shortcut (you can assign it to a long press of the Menu or Record buttons) should work in the file browser (it only works while you're at the Now Playing screen, which is pretty useless). It is also a little skimpy on accessories; I would expect it to come with a simple protective case and/or a wrist strap, as well as an AC adapter.
Overall, this is a great MP3 (and Ogg Vorbis!) player, but it's probably best for geeky types who will appreciate and use all of the features and be able to work around the quirks. For just under a hundred and forty dollars for 2 GB, it compares favorably with the Creative Zen V Plus (which has a similar but smaller feature set) and the iRiver Clix (which has a larger screen but costs thirty dollars more).
Buy the Cowon iAudio U3 2 GB MP3 Player at Amazon.com
