Cowon iAudio X5 20GB Review

The User Reviews

Average User Rating: 7.2

1. Poor Cowon Customer Service

   

   By: Brad
   September 10, 2007 @ 10:53 PM

   I purchased an iAudio X5L in January of 2006 because of the favorable reviews they have received from many owners. From the perspective of audio quality, it was a superb performer for me. The FM radio was quite functional and was able to pull in all the stations I regularly listened to, and the voice recorder was at least adequate, although I think it really needs a powered external mic to realize its full potential. The video, on the other hand, was quite awful — at least as compared to the iPod. I didn’t care about the video, however, so this was not really a factor in my purchase.

   I use the line-out capabilities of my iAudio to play music through my home stereo and in both of our family cars. Unfortunately, in March of 2007, shortly after my warranty expired, my left line-out channel went dead. This was the beginning of my worst customer service nightmare ever.

   Fortunately, or so I thought, I had bought an extended warranty from Mack Camera & Video Service. I packaged up the unit and sent it to Mack Camera, including a letter detailing my problem. I fully expected that I’d receive my repaired unit back in a couple of weeks. It was not until late May of 2007 that I received an obviously refurbished unit. During this time I called and emailed Mack Camera numerous times only to be ignored at every opportunity. At Mack CameraÂ’s website you can check the status of your repairs. For my repair it always said “Status: ManufacturerReason: Manufacturer. It seems that Cowon does its repairs somewhere in CA and does not have a phone number that customers, or extended warranty providers such as Mack Camera, can use. All correspondence must be via email. Cowon was content to drag its feet endlessly. Mack Camera, for its part, seemingly felt no obligation to help speed things along for me and was perfectly content to keep me in the dark. I had NO idea as to the status of my repair until I received the refurbished unit in the mail.

   To my great disgust, the refurbished unit I received was itself damaged. The circuit board tab to which the sub-pack connects was slightly, but noticeably, bent. It took me more than 20 minutes of jiggling the sub pack before I could get it attached so I could transfer over my music files. I also charged the unit at this time the only time I was EVER able to charge the refurbished unit.

   So, after a few days of frustration, I called up Mack Camera once again and carefully explained the new problem. No problem, they said. They sent me a UPS call tag and I shipped the damaged refurbished unit back to them at their expense. They told me on the phone that IÂ’d have the unit back in a few days. It is now late September 2007 and after six months I still donÂ’t have my iAudio back! IÂ’m getting the same old run around from Mack Camera. No response to any of my phone calls or emails, and apparently I went straight to the bottom of the queue at CowonÂ’s US repair site. Honestly, doesnÂ’t it make you wonder how reliable Cowon products really are if there is such a long line of repair work to be done?

   Well, to add insult to injury, today I received a repair estimate in the mail from Mack Camera. They are asking that I pay $105 to repair the bent sub-pack connector! They are claiming Cowon has determined that I damaged the unit, for crying out loud. My wife and I just rolled our eyes when we saw that. She watched me struggle at length to get the sub-pack connected to the refurbished unit. Cowon sent me a lemon, yet because it is my word against theirs, and because if Mack acknowledges that Cowon is at fault they would have to pay for the repair themselves under the terms of the extended warranty, Mack is sticking me with the bill.

   I don’t know what I will do frankly. With extra cables and accessories I have more than $600 in this unit. I feel like if I pay the $105 I’ll be paying extortion fees, but if I don’t I’ll just have an expensive pile of junk that I won’t even be able to sell on eBay. If I do pay the bill, I expect not to see the unit until at least November or early December.

   The only thing I am certain of is that I hope I’ll be able to cost both Cowon and Mack Camera far more in lost business than they would have spent to treat me fairly and like a valued customer – thus this review. If you have read this far, you had better fully understand what you are getting into. As long as your Cowon product is working you will love it. But if it fails, you will end up in the same endless pit of customer service hell that IÂ’m currently in. And beware of Mack Camera extended warranties. They will ignore your requests for information on repairs, and they will take every step they can to deny your claims. Consider yourself warned!

   Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

2. easy to use

   

   By: wayne
   October 2, 2006 @ 11:00 AM

   I bought one the 60gig x5 and it is great. Audio books and music pictures. The software is very easy to use.

   Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

3. Superior MP3 Player

   

   By: Dann
   August 18, 2006 @ 1:00 AM

   I bought the X5L version 30 gig, (30 hour battery life) and it blew me away. The ONLY problem that I have with it is… I have over 5000 songs. This player is not user friendly like the Ipod. It’s more of a computer that way, you browse through folders and files. The best way to use this is to create playlists of your favourite genres or artists, whatever. If you don’t use playlists, it can be frustrating listening to a slew of your favourite songs.
   But as a computer-literate user, I definitely prefer this over the Ipod. The headphones are amazing and have GREAT BASS. My player is in a case, and I’ve dropped it a couple times. No flaws whatsoever in playback. However, the transfer software (equivalent of ITunes) is a little glitchy when it comes to converting and dragging/dropping. So use the buttons they provide.
   Best investment I made.

   Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

4. video problem

   

   By: Cleven
   February 28, 2006 @ 4:17 PM

   I have the Iaudio X5 but somehow I couldn’t get the player to play videos.. i did convert them with jetaudio but even when I transfered it into the player, still it won”t play the video? anyone can help me out here?

   Rating: 7 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

5. One question

   

   By: Geof
   November 17, 2005 @ 8:45 PM

   So this player doesn’t let one browse by artist? If not, how does it let you browse?????

   Rating: 7 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

6. Difficult to beat

   

   By: patrick
   November 13, 2005 @ 11:37 PM

   The Cowon X5 is a real gem. The sound is totally unbeatable – try recording your reference audio CD into a FLAC file, then take the challenge: listen to it via your hifi, listen to it via the most expensive reference earphones, let someone else listen to the music (with the supplied earphones they are very good much better than any other supplied buds) and you will not believe it. Absolutely stellar quality and with BBE sound can help improve quality of 128-192kbps MP3 recordings. film quality is good, fine for video clips or comedy films. Yes, films need to be converted but the conversion is very fast, the Jet Audio software is now my MP3 player it beats Winamp and the others no problem. Overall it is a really good buy, it may not have a 1000% perfect USB host interface, but how many players have this feature at all in the first place? I also like the fact it is (I think) based on a Linux microkernel, if Cowon released it as Open source it could allow modding of the interface which might be a cool idea. Whatever it is it beats the Apple players. It plays video better than the new Video Ipod, the Ipod has a coool look and the video is very bright and vivid, but got very poor rendering of movement, which makes your eyes tired.
   Very happy with this player. Also the battery life on the 30XL is quite amazing.

   Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

7. Question

   

   By: Vito
   October 29, 2005 @ 3:51 PM

   I read in a review elsewhere that the USB OTG-feature doesn’t work as nice as one might think. It is said that it’s possible to transfer only 1 photo at a time and with some difficulty at that! If this is really the case, this feature doesn’t really have much value, I think. In this review, this con isn’t mentioned, so I wonder if it’s true. Can anyone please tell me?
   Thanks a lot!

   Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

8. "great so far"

   

   By: Erik
   October 11, 2005 @ 11:11 AM

   I’m very pleased with my X5. the interface looks nice and the video playback function is nice for when I’d like to watch a family guy or just a short movie.

   And at Tyler: The X5 does support ID3, but what you mean is that it hasn’t the ability to create playlists based on the ID3 tags. The Ipod and Iriver models do have such an option, which enables you to choose between artist/genre etc. The fact that the X5 can show the name of the album and other stuff means it does support ID3-tags.

   I gave it 8/10, because of the great great sound and the UI (user interface).

   Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

9. ID Tags work for me

   

   By: Joey
   October 11, 2005 @ 10:31 AM

   It says right on the specs page it does: Supports ID3V2, ID3V1, FileName.

   Maybe you need to learn how to use them?

   Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

10. Review didn't even mention ID3

    

    By: Tyler
    October 11, 2005 @ 8:30 AM

    Something you may want to note in your multiple-page review, that’s kind of important in a high-capacity hard-drive player, is that the X5 currently has NO ID3 tag support, which is how every major mp3 player sorts music–you know, by Artist/Genre/Album etc. The X5 does NOT support this, which is why the player will not gain widespread popularity; an incredibly stupid move on Cowon’s part (they have acknowledged that they’re working on it, but have promised nothing).

    Rating: 5 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

11. Great so far

    

    By: Jonathan
    October 9, 2005 @ 9:51 PM

    I really like my X5. Accessories are expensive. Car FM adapter is noisy ($50 more). Want to update headsets. Easy update of firmware.. fixed some play probs. Great video.. but needs to be converted to run on the X5.

    Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No