HiFi Blog: digital audio goodness

One of the first devices to sport a .85-inch 4GB hard drisk inside, Cowon’s latest offering seems stunning (eye candy here). The 1.3-inch, 260k-color OLED display allows you to watch your MPEG-4 videos (it does JPEG pictures and texts too). Audio-wise, OGG and FLAC support (besides MP3/WMA/WAV) is sure to please audio enthusiasts—there’s Windows Media DRM 10 support for music subscription services. Navigation is performed using the touch-sensitive controls on the front (notice the odd diagonal strip)—there are dedicated volume buttons on the side. DAPreview’s Austin reports:

Also of note is a slick new GUI/menu system and the main controller, which is the first touch-sensitive type control on an iAudio player. It works nicely – the sensitivity seems to be well tuned. [...] In case you were wondering, the iAudio 6 is meant to be held horizontally, with the screen on the left side. The diagonal orientation of the touch-strip is perfect for the natural arc of your thumb. The volume controls on the top edge fall within easy reach of your forefinger.

It’s got the usual goodies we’ve come to expect from our friends from the East: FM tuner/recording, voice/line-in recording, USB On-The-Go (ensuring you’ll be able to back up your digital camera’s photos directly to the device, etc.) The battery is said to last for 20 hours (for audio).

If it’s priced competitively and it delivers upon its promises, it has the potential to rock. But something tells us that Cowon will drop the ball once more when pricing their product. We’ll see—expect it somewhere around March.