Primary reasons for the selection of "Cowon iAudio 7" were the 16 GB flash memory, the long battery life of 50 hours, the support of the Ogg Vorbis format and the seamless integration of the player as a USB Mass Storage on Linux / BSD for me. Furthermore, I wanted a player that is well made and a very good sound quality has. For me were important skills such as looking at pictures or movies. I also did not want a iPod or a device which is modeled on this.
I think that the "Cowon iAudio 7" already very close to the rankommt what I wanted, the following restrictions however I noticed why I forgive only 4 stars.
1. The Ogg Vorbis support, unfortunately, is not complete, it will be detected and displayed in contrast to mp3 metadata, you can see only the file name. (Supplement 2009-07-26: This issue has been resolved with the new firmware 1:18 in the meantime.)
2. The player can not blindly use, it is neither possible times a track further switch again quickly press the pause. One must always rausholen the player when you for example is at the checkout, or somehow needs to communicate (call, etc.), just annoying for radio play friends. Cowon had taken the "touchpad" probably should make better use of keys, then one would probably no longer need the "key lock".
3. See the included earphones in relation to the quality of player quite simple, sonically they could not convince me.
