Cowon iAudio 7

Full Review

The Cowon plays more formats than any other player from lossless codecs like FLAC and WAV to other popular formats. It also has an array of audio enhancement features, but its interface could have been more polished considering it’s a power-packed audio player. Using the player is frustrating, owing to the extra sensitive touch-based buttons.

When we began our playback tests, first, we turned off all the audio enhancements and plugged in our Sennheiser in-earplugs that resulted in tight bass and sharp highs. The only thing we found it lacking was the smooth bass and rich sound that the Sony NWZ E436 offered. But when we tweaked around with its audio enhancements, things got really better. Features like line-in recording, voice recording with different settings for microphone sensitivity are what set the iAudio 7 apart from the rest. On top of that, the battery life is outstanding. It lasted us more than 36 hours which is the longest we achieved in our test. Our only complaint is the unpolished interface and extra-sensitive controls. But with a price of Rs. 4,999 and outstanding audio performance, it’s a mean audio player.

Bottom Line

Out of the box, the Cowon iAudio7 supports more number of audio formats than any of the other players in the top 5. The audio quality is also pretty good but hyper-sensitive controls and a small screen don’t help matters.