As Christmas is coming, some of us may be considering buying a MP3 player for ourselves and/or families/friends. There are generally three kinds of MP3 players in the market. The first category is the pure MP3 players. They’re flash memory based, small, cheap and can only play music. The memory size is often from 512MB to 2GB, such as an iPod shuffle. The second category is also flash based, but they normally have a colour screen for playing pictures and/or videos, in addition to music. The memory size is usually from 1GB to 8GB, such as iPod nano. The third category is hard drive based. They’re much bigger in terms of storage space, physical size and screen size. They normally have 30GB, 60GB or 80GB models, such as the iPod and the new Microsoft Zune.
I personally prefer the second category of MP3 players. They have small enough bodies for carrying around and colour screens for displaying pictures and/or videos when you need them. Although the storage space is not as big as the hard drive models, it’s enough for music. Each GB of memory can normally store around 13 CDs.
Apart from iPod nano etc., here’s another very popular model in this category – the Cowon iAudio F2. It can do all the jobs you want from an iPod nano, plus some other functions which the iPod nano doesn’t have.
The Cowon iAudio F2 is a super compact flash-based player, which looks like a mobile phone. It’s one fifth shorter than iPod nano (72.9 mm vs. 90 mm), but is more than twice as thick as the nano (16.7mm vs. 6.5mm). It’s slightly narrower than the iPod nano (34.8mm vs. 40mm). The F2 has a 1.3” TFT screen with resolution of 128x160, while iPod nano’s display is 1.5” (176x132) and there are nine red-backlit buttons beneath the bright and colourful screen.
The Cowon iAudio F2 supports a variety of audio files, including MP3, OGG, WMA, ASF, FLAC and WAV. It also has a decent line-in, voice and FM recorder, which the iPod nano doesn’t have. Although the FM radio doesn’t have an auto scan option, the 24 presets work well and you can also schedule the player for FM recordings. For radio fans, this function will be a great bonus.
Same as the iPod nano, the Cowon iAudio F2 can play JPEG photos. Furthermore, it can also play video files up to 160x128. The iPod nano is lacking in video support. Your video clips do have to be converted using the bundled JetAudio VX software.
The battery life is 22 hours for audio playback, which is brilliant. The package includes the iAudio F2, earphone, USB 2.0 cable, line-in cable, simple USB connector, quick guide and installation CD.
Currently, there are three models of the Cowon iAudio F2 available.
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