I just bought a new MP3 player, from COWON (iAUDIO) for 169 euros.
I was hesitating a long time, comparing with a product from Packard Bell but the saleman made me buy the iAUDIO instead. And he was right for sure!

The packaging is already excellent, and the specifications listed there are really impressive.
Playback audio formats: MP3, OGG, WMA, WAV (What else could you need !?)
Voice recorder, FM radio and recording (direct MP3 encoding), USB 2.0 Drive, Lithium battery (rechargeable through the USB port) with up to 20 hours continuous playback. Etc, etc..

Opening the box, it comes with really nice  earphones, manual, USB connector and USB cable, Line-in cable, a carrying case, a neck cord and an installation CD. I could not wish anything more.

First surprise, the player itself is VERY light. I almost can't feel it in my hand and it's pretty classy.


I plugged it to my computer, uploaded a few albums and let the battery recharge for a while... Power ON!

I usually never read manuals and learn by using the product, but this time I had to give a quick look as some of the options, like the files navigator, are not so easy to find.
However, after a few minutes, I got to know the menus, checked the options and with the multi-directional button, it's super-fast to browse the different sections.

Audio quality is good and download MP3s on the player is very simple, by using the software coming with it or just using it as a USB hard-drive.
I'll probably not use much the software (JetShell) except for the MP3 encoder which is pretty nice (and fast!) to encode MP3s from audio CDs. Plus it is checking the CDDB for album information and tagging the MP3s, which is pretty nice.

In summary, a great product, a bit expensive but very well done.

iAUDIO