Cowon iAUDIO 7
MP3 | February 13th, 2008
One of the most notable design elements on the iAudio 7 is Cowon’s unique Swing Touch user interface. While we admit it does take some getting used to, the iAudio interface is an effective and novel way to quickly navigate through files. The diagonal bar can be used to scroll through lists in three ways: swiping your finger up or down, holding down one corner, or just tapping a corner. The Record and Play buttons on each side of the scroll strip also serve to take you in and out of file directories.
As a control system it’s a mixed bag. The scroller works brilliantly in conjunction with the high-resolution 160 x 128 TFT screen, allowing you to whiz up and down long lists of tracks, albums, artists with gay abandon. However, the touch-sensitive ‘buttons’ flanking it aren’t as good and it takes a fair bit of practice to figure out how to get them to respond to your touch every time. Normal buttons combined with the touch-sensitive slider would have worked much better here.
You hold the iAudio 7 lengthways to view the screen while operating the quirky touch-sensitive controls with your right thumb. I couldn’t get used to scrolling through lists with the slider. Even after reducing the sensitivity from the settings menu, I still triggered seemingly random operations just by picking up the player gingerly by its edges, while at other times my intentional gestures met with no response.
| Specifications | |
| Memory | Internal Flash memory 4GB, 8GB, 16GB |
| PC interface | USB 2.0 High Speed |
| File Transfer Speed | Max. 40Mbps (Upload Max. 40Mbps) |
| Battery | Built-in Rechargeable Lithium Polymer battery |
| Continuous Playing Time | Max. 60 hours of continuous playback based on company test result |
| Charging Time | Approx. 3 hours 50 minutes |
| Buttons | Swing Touch(REC, <, >, PLAY), Power/Hold, VOL+, VOL-, MENU |
| Display | 1.3 inch 160×128 dot, 260,000 color TFT LCD |
| SNR | 95dB (A-Weighted) |
| Max Output | 16 Ohm earphones : 26mW + 26mW |
| Frequency Range | 20Hz ~ 20KHz |
| Size | 1.3 X 2.9 X 0.7 inch (Width x Length x Thickness) |
| Weight(Include Lithium Polymer battery) | 1.8 oz (includes lithium polymer battery) |