|
 |
|
 |
 |
In the past few
years, it has been the hard-drive based MP3 players that have
been advancing the most comparing to other MP3 players.
As people's musical tastes get more and more diverse, they want
to carry more and more music along with them. Instead on taking
along a few CD's on their MP3 or CD player, they now want to
carry all, or at least a large portion of their music with them.
And that's why the Hard-Drive players are so appealing. Coming
in sizes of 5-80 GB, various shapes and sizes, there's bound
to be one that suits your needs and wants.
Well, your choice is about to get much tougher with the introduction
of the brand new iAUDIO M3 player made by Cowon.
----------------------------------------------
While most of you reading this article might have heard somewhere
about Cowon and/or iAUDIO,
you may not know much about their origins.
Here's a brief history lesson on Cowon: They were established
in April 1995 in Seoul, South Korea. Their humble beginnings
were started with the creation of the JetAudio music software.
This program quickly grew into full-featured music ripping/organizing/playing
program.
It has received very positive reviews from nearly all that review
it.
Then in 2000(?), they released the Cowon CW-100. This was a
bit of a sleeper mp3 player and was not super successful. However,
in 2002(?), they released the Cowon CW-200. This was a blowout
hit. In Hong Kong, there were reports that over 3000 units were
sold in the first 10 days!
In 2003, they revamped this player and released the Cowon CW-300
that is similar in features and looks but an improvement nonetheless.
Then in 2004, they released a new player; the I4 player under
the iAUDIO name. This has been a hit with its flashy 124-color
screen, a first in mp3 players.
And now we move into the present with the iAudio M3, Cowon's
first Hard Drive mp3 player.
|
|
 |
The player box
itself is a very nice thing. It is well-designed and well thought
out. It feels very high quality, and it should considering the
price of the player. Unlike many other mp3 players, it is not
made of the plastic that is so hard to cut open and get your
player out. This box is a simple rectangle made of cardboard
and is quite easy to open up.
Once, you get the contents of the box out this is what you'll
find inside:
----------------------------------------------
|
|
|
The diagram is pretty much self-explanatory. The cradle is optional
so if would like to get it, check if you are ordering the right
model.
The included accessories are very nice and I don't think you
could ask for more. The line-in recording cable and the carrying
case are bonuses in my books though. Many players do not include
these types of accessories.
Good job to iAUDIO for choosing to include them. The sub-pack
is a very interesting and creative idea as is the in-line remote
to decrease the size of the player. They work flawlessly in
doing so. More on these later in the review.
|
|
 |
Before getting
into the functions and how the player works in playing music,
let's talk about the build quality of the unit. I have to start
by saying that the main body of the player is made of aluminum.
This is great because it will add longevity and durability to
the player. Kudos to iAUDIO for using metal in a time where
most mp3 player are made completely out of plastic. While this
may decrease the weight, it also decreases the durability of
the unit. In my opinion, metal players look much better and
more expensive than plastic ones.
The seals between the pieces of metal are very close; there
are no gaps. The finishing is exquisite. The lights on top of
the player look beautiful, especially at night. They are extremely
useful if you are not using the remote as well.
As for the buttons, on the player, they are well above average
quality but slightly lower quality
that the body.
|
|
|
 |
On the player itself, you will find
7 buttons:
1. Play/Pause
2. Seek/Fast Forward
3. Seek/Rewind
4. Mode/Volume Up/Volume Down (Jog Dial)
5. Record/A-B
6. Hold
7. Reset Button
On top of the player, you
will also find some nice lights. They seem to be just for
looks but they actually serve a purpose. Their different colors
and flashing patterns can help you use the player with or
without the remote. Here are the corresponding colors/patterns:
* Yellow-Hard drive accessing
* Blue-Music playing
* Blue (flashing)-Music Paused
* Green-FM radio
* Orange (flashing)-in record mode, ready to record
* Orange-recording
Red-Player Charging
|
|
 |
On the remote, you will find 5 buttons:
1. Play/Pause/Fast Forward/Rewind (Jog Dial)
2. Mode
3. Record/A-B
4. Menu/Volume Up/Volume Down (Jog Dial)
5. Hold
|
|
 |
|
 |
When you first
hold the player in your hands, you cannot believe how small
it is.
The exact dimension are 103.7 mm x 60.8mm x 14.2mm. You can
draw it out on a piece of paper if you want to see how small
it really is.
If you thought the iPod was small, this player is smaller in
every dimension by a few millimeters and quite a bit lighter
as well at 136g. You are also amazed by the sheer beauty of
the player. The metal is a bit shiny and looks very elegant
as well as expensive.
Overall, the design is very simple but effective. The engineers
obviously put in a lot of time and effort getting the design
right. I also must mention that the ergonomics of this player
are fantastic!
When you hold the player body in your right hand, all the buttons
are conveniently located and easy to use. To use the remote
effectively, it is best to use both hands. Then the navigation
is very easy and quick.
|
|
|
 |
As the battery
should already come charged, the first thing you'll want to
do is transfer music to the player. Actually, this may be one
of the simplest things you'll ever do. Just hook up the USB
cable and power cable to the dock and connect both to their
sockets.
Take out the little rubber cover from the bottom of the player
and insert the player into the dock. The player should automatically
turn on and some little windows may come up in Windows asking
if you want to install the drivers for the iAUDIO M3 player.
Just quickly go through these and you're pretty much done. If
you look at the player on its stand, you should notice the lights
on the player flashing. Usually, the yellow on will be on to
show that the hard drive is working and the red will be on to
show it is charging.
The three middle colors may be blinking is a sequential pattern.
The M3 will now show up as a removable drive in Windows. All
you have to do is find the files/folders you want to transfer
and drag them into the M3 drive.
They will transfer now either through USB 2.0 or USB 1.1. Just
like CNET, I experienced amazingly fast transfer rates. They
are in the range of 8MB/sec.
Through USB 2.0. This much faster than the iPod, even when it's
using Firewire! After the transfers complete, you will need
to use that little icon in the toolbar by the clock to disconnect
the player from the computer.
Once you do this, the player's remote will display, "OK
to Disconnect".
|
|
 |
There are two ways
to turn on the player. You can either use the remote or the
buttons on the player. But no matter which way you use you have
to hold down the button for about two seconds to turn on the
player.
This was a very smart decision made by the engineers because
this can prevent the player from turning on by accident when
it's in a bag. First of all, a screen appears with a picture
of the M3 and message saying, "iAUDIO HI". This stays
on for about 2 seconds with the backlight.
Next, a different screen appears that shows a logo-movie on
top and a progression bar with firmware version on the bottom.
This screen stays on for 5-6 seconds. After this, the player
moves into the playing screen. A "WAIT" message shows
up for another 2-3 seconds.
Then, the music begins to play. In all, the start up is pretty
fast; 10 seconds at the fastest, 15 seconds at the slowest.
|
|
|
 |
|
The playing screen on the remote of
the iAUDIO M3 is well laid out although it can easily be improved
to be even better in future firmware revisions.
1. On the top left it shows the current track number and the
total number of files.
2. The next 2 icons show the boundary and repeat/shuffle indicators.
3. The next icon shows the status of the hold buttons. There
are two of these: one on the body and one
on the remote.
4. The rest of the icons on the top line indicate player function
(mp3/fm/recording), hard drive status (in
use or not), play status (play/pause/ff/rew) and battery level.
The battery indicator has 5 bars
and has been accurate so far.
5. The second line from the top can show either artist and
album name or just the folder name depending
on if you choose id3 tag usage or filename usage in the options
menu. One noticeable bug is that this
line cannot scroll. I hope this is fixed in future firmware
updates as it is quite annoying. (This
has been successfully fixed with the latest 1.10 firmware
version :)
6. The third line displays song title or song title and artist
depending on your menu selection once again.
This line is able to scroll.
7. The fourth line is a progress indicator of the song that
is playing. It shows elapsed time on the left side
and time remaining on the right side. This is very accurate
with cbr files, ogg files and wma
files.
However, as with most mp3 players,
it does not display remaining time properly on lame VBR
files. I hope they find a fix for
this as most of my music is encoded this way.
8. The fifth line is just a simple visualization with right/left
meters. In future firmware updates it would be
nice to be able to take this out and have an extra line to
display file info.
9. The sixth line begins with kbps and khz info. To my huge
surprise, the player does not display VBR on
these types of files. It does better, it displays the actual
bit rate. This is constantly changing in
the VBR file. Actually, it works
exactly the same as in Winamp which is a great thing.
10. The rest of line six is to show the sound options which
have been selected. This is a nice addition
since sometimes you forget which ones you turned on/off. With
this, you can avoid a quick check
into the menus.
|
|
|
 |
|
The iAUDIO M3 does not use an ID3 database.
It instead uses the simple but effective file-tree method
that is the exact same as in windows.
If your music is well organized on your computer, then it
will be a pleasure to just drag and drop the music you want
into the M3.
As an added bonus, you are already familiar with your own
structure so it will be very fast to find specific albums/artists/songs.
This is my own opinion but I actually prefer the file-tree
method to a database. First of all, you can organize your
folders the way you want to. You make all the choices.
Often what happens with database programs is that they make
mistakes in organizing. If you have three files by Paul Van
Dyk but they're all spelt different with just minor capitalization
errors (i.e. Paul van Dyk , paul van dyk, Paul van dyk), they
are usually sorted into three different artists.
Very annoying when you want to find a certain song/CD from
him. It's just guess and check. But when you organize your
collection, you can put them all in the same folder. Secondly,
you usually need a program to make this database. It may have
certain limitations, restrictions etc. iRiver's for example
does not allow files longer than 52 characters long.
For my music collection, most of it would be rejected. No
thanks! Third, I feel that it sometimes may increase the boot
up time of the player, especially when you have just added
new files on the player and it's turning on for the first
time.
Although it took some time, I organized my player to perfection.
I first have folders for genres: Chill-Out/Classical/Comedy/Others/Rap/Trance.
In each of these I have a folder for every artist. In each
of the artists folder, I have all their CD's in there.
So everytime I want to play a certain CD, it never takes more
than 5 seconds to find and play it. Very efficient.
|
|
|
|
The M3 has a very elaborate and useful
menu system.
All the choices are well placed and in logical order. Good
job iAUDIO! To enter into the menu, you must be using the
remote. You hold down the menu button for about 2 seconds
and the menu comes up. Here are all the menu options:
JetEffect
- Equalizer - 5 bands to adjust
-
BBE - 0-10
-
Mach3Bass - 0-10
-
MP Enhance - On/Off
-
3D Surround - 0-10
-
Pan - 5 left/5 right
PlayMode -
Boundary - All/Single/Dir/SubDir
-
Repeat - On/Off
-
Shuffle - On/Off
Display
- Playtime - Elapsed/Remain
-
Scroll Speed - 1/2/4/8/16
-
Scroll Type - One Way/Two Way
-
Song Title - Filename/ID3 Tag
-
Backlight Time - Off/1/2/4/8sec./Always
-
Contrast - 0-10
-
Language -Chinese (simple / trad.) / English / Hangul(Kor.)
/ Japanese / Russian
Timer
- AutoOff - Off/30sec/1/5/10/30/60min.
-
Sleep - Off/10/20/30/40/50/60/90/120min.
General
- Skip Length - Track/2/3/4/5/10/15/20/30sec.
-
Scan Speed - x4/x7/x10/x20
-
Resume - On/Off
-
AutoPlay - On/Off
-
FadeIn - Off/1/2/3/4/5sec.
-
Controls - Rec Long - DPL Add/Del/PlayMode
-
Load Default - Cancel/OK
Recording - FM Radio
bps - 64/96/128/256/320kbps
-
Line-in bps - 64/96/128/256/320kbps
-
Line Volume - 0-10
-
Voice bps - 32/48/64/96/128 kbps
-
Mic Volume - Low/High
FM Radio -
Stereo - Stereo/Mono
-
FM Region - China/Europe/Japan/Korea/US
Information Version /
HDD Tot. / HDD Free / Dirs / Songs
|
|
|
 |
|
Many people will be wondering how the
sound quality is on this tiny player.
Based on my experiences so far, it is excellent. It sounds
good flat and even when it's EQ'd.
The flat (normal) EQ gives a pretty neutral and balances sound.
The music just sounds quite natural. I have to mention that
the player also excels in stereo separation and cleanness
of output.
The stereo separation is so much better than my ifp-395T.
You can clearly visualize every instrument and sound and its
placement because of the clean output.
The player does not distort even at the highest volume level
(40) as long as you keep the EQ flat. iAUDIO has advertised
this player as having "Color Sound". It indeed can
live up to its billing.
In the menu entitled "Jet Effect", you have 5 parameters
that you can change to "color" your sound.
The 5 band EQ is quite useful although you can only increase
band values, you cannot decrease them. I suspect that this
feature may be added into a future firmware update.
The next choice is BBE. This sounds like some sort of sound
compressor. It seems to be similar technology that several
musicians use during their live concerts but I generally don't
like this effect.
Most times, it makes the music sound like plastic. Next comes
Mach3Bass. This is obviously a bass enhancer. It is actually
pretty good and bass heads will enjoy this bass boost. After
this is MPEnhance which is supposed to try to restore some
of the quality that is lost when compressing to MP3. It seems
to boost high frequencies and is not bad at doing so. I use
it on some of my lower quality files to good effect. Last
comes 3DSurround.
This is supposed to try to emulate having more than 2 directions
of sound output. It's not bad at all and works nice with live
music or stand up comedy acts. All in all, these effects are
a nice addition. With the right combinations, you can make
your music sound punchier, bassier and more to your liking.
(If that's what you like.) If you don't like them, you always
have the normal setting.
This player also features a dedicated lineout. It is not directly
on the player but on the sub-pack and dock. The lineout is
of good quality and is like most HD players on the market
with a lineout: the line out's volume cannot be controlled
but the EQ still works.
Battery life so far has been very good for such a small player.
I have gotten between 10-12 hours-playing Lame APS encoded
files. This is with the volume between 10 and 20 and the backlight
being used quite a bit. Therefore, this can be considered
real life batter timing.
You might be able to get 14 hours as advertised if you turn
the backlight off, disconnect the remote, set volume to 15
and not change the songs. Recharging is very simple and fast.
It takes around 2 hours to fully charge the battery.
You can do this with the sub-pack or the dock. You can recharge
through the wall plug or the USB cable. Unlike most HD players,
this one can in fact be recharged with USB. This is very nice
because the player's battery does not drain while transferring
files.
And when you're done, it will even recharge the battery for
you. Perfect!
|
|
 |
|
The M3 is capable of playing WMA, OGG,
WAV and of course MP3. Battery life drops slightly when playing
OGG and WMA and quite a bit when playing WAV.
MP3 playback is high quality. When playing CBR files, the
remaining time displayed is correct.
However, when you play VBR files, the displayed time is not
correct. Playback is not quite gapless but the gap is very
small. Many times you cannot even notice it. On VBR files,
the player shows the actual bit rate just like Winamp. Ogg
playback is high quality as well.
The remaining time is sometimes correct but always pretty
close. The displayed bitrate is accurate and exact. However,
there is no gapless playback. In fact, the gap between ogg
files is usually more noticeable than between MP3 files.
This is odd because ogg is designed to be gapless while MP3
is not. WMA playback usually shows correct remaining time
and bit rate. I have not used it much however because I like
MP3 and OGG better. WAV playback is amazing.
The M3 has good enough sound output that you can actually
tell the difference between WAV's and Lame APS MP3's. The
remaining time is always shown correctly, as is the bit rate.
WAV playback is not gapless but the gap is almost inaudible.
It's even smaller than with MP3. As long as iAUDIO can add
gapless playback with all codecs, the player's playback features
and quality will be amazing.
The added case is quite nice. Its color is an elegant black.
It covers most of the player, even most of the buttons. It
protects the player from scratches, dust, dirt etc. It is
highly recommended to put the M3 in the case when you put
it in your bag. The player is built tough but extra protection
is always nice.
The sub-pack that is included with every player is a wonderful
idea. This is one of the reasons why the player is so small
and thin. But if you want to record or use the lineout, all
you need to do is connect it to the player. Marvelous thinking
and flexibility.
The dock is very nice as well. It has the exact same inputs/outputs
as the sub-pack but it stands up the player. The angle is
very nice and the finish on the dock is very nice as well.
I wish every MP3 player came with a dock because it makes
connecting the player to the computer so much faster and easier.
I have to add also that iAUDIO has some of the best support
I have ever experienced. They have replied to all my emails
before and after purchase within one business day. No emails
have been skipped.
Firmware support has been top notch and I don't think that
will change. There have already been several upgrades in the
past few months. Some customers complained about the album
line on the display not scrolling and iAUDIO fixed this in
less than 2 week's time. I have a hard time imagining any
other company beating that. If you want something in or want
to know something about this player, send them an email and
see what they say. It doesn't hurt to ask.
Although I have heard about some problems with remotes, I
have not had any. I suspect that it was just a small problem
with early batches. The problem is all solved so you can go
buy this player right away with no worries.
|
|
 |
|
TheAll in all, the iAUDIO M3 is an amazing
feat of engineering and design. It looks great, sounds great,
feels great and is great in almost every way.
Although the HD MP3 player market is already very saturated,
I think this player will find its niche. Everyone should find
something to like about this player.
I think that people on the move and people most concerned
about how their player looks (most of my friends agreed this
player looks better than the iPod) will like this player best.
I encourage everyone to at least try this player out if you
are considering buying a HD MP3 player.
I did, and I'm not disappointed one bit!
|
|
| |
 |
 |
|
iAUDIO M3
