Cowon U5 Will Be Underwhelming You Soon

Filed under: Portable Audio > Portable Audio Players



Cowon’s “U” series (which I believe started with the U2) was the company’s small, cheap, and cheerful range below the high end iAudio 4/5 and “AA” powered G series back when they didn’t have such a confusing and redundant range of flash players. The U3 attempted to spruce up the range a bit by adding a color screen with video playback, but the screen was so tiny that this was basically a pointless gimmick. The upcoming U5 has switched to a Nano style layout and is far larger than its predecessors, though the screen size has increased to only 1.8”.

Most likely realizing that anyone who wants to watch videos will buy a D2, Cowon hasn’t included any video abilities on the U5. More strange is the lack of Ogg and FLAC support, which are featured on almost all Cowon players. The U5 will be available in 2, 4, and 8GB versions, and will provide the bare minimum of mp3 and WMA support, an FM tuner/recorder, and a voice recorder, with 20hrs of battery life. The U5 will most likely be priced well below the current iAudio 7 and D2.