Cowon iAudio10 MP3 player review

The big question is, when your phone can offer a media player with 32GB and more storage, and very likely a perfectly good syncing software with your computer, why oh why would you want a standalone Flash MP3 player? Cowon's new iAudio10 wants to be the answer.

Design
Cowon's iAudio10 device won an award from the Japan Institute of Design earlier this year, which can't be bad; and sure enough, it's a sleek piece of kit. It's slim, flat on the screen side and gently curved on the back, which is covered with a tactile rubberised plastic -- it's a nice looking sliver of tech.
On the sides are a volume rocker and power/sleep button, with a neat 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom. There's also a plastic cover hiding a proprietary power/sync port that links to standard USB or analogue TV out, and a microphone for recording conversations or music at up to 256Kbps.
The 3-inch screen itself isn't touch sensitive, but the panel below it is, operating as a seven-way D-pad and allowing you to scroll to find your way around. Start it up and you're treated to Cowon's Colour Therapy animated UI, which looks pretty, despite the relatively low resolution of 400x240 pixels and offers a few customisation options such as changing the colours.

There's no interface for syncing the device with your PC -- it all works by standard drag 'n' drop. That makes things simple, but there's no option for automatic updates of podcasts, for instance.
Performance
Once you've got some music on there, the JetEffect equaliser offers 39 (count 'em) presets -- a good couple of dozen more options than you get with most phones these days, if they offer any option at all. They're not just there for show either, and all seemed to make a genuine difference to the sound, though not always the obvious kind; Rap, for instance, largely removes the bass, while Jazz boosts it -- go figure.
The supplied headphones aren't the best. In fact, they're a long way from the best, sounding a tad tinny and emaciated. Swap them for something a bit more robust however, like the Beats Audio earphones from HTC's recent Sensation XE, and a whole new world of sound opens up. Bass, like the Christmas snow we always hope for, is deep, crisp and even, without sounding muffled.
The video player offers four different ratio settings, including one which fits the film to the screen, as well as a selection of brightness and speed settings, with pitch correction, so you can view things fast without them sounding all Alvin and the Chipmunks.
There's an FM radio on board but reception didn't appear to be very good, and the automatic scan struggled to find any stations, so we were reduced to hunting for them manually by scrolling the airwaves. You can also record directly from the radio to the device.
Battery life held up pretty well, offering a solid six hours' worth of video playback and well over a day of audio.
ConclusionIt's a nice-looking device and easy to use too, but it's a pretty basic offering compared to what virtually any Android smart phone can offer you for a similar price. So we have to ask: what's the point?