Cowon Q5 40GB

Advantages: Outstanding value for money and extremely slick design
Disadvantages: FM radio is not very clear

...to connect to the PC and transferring music is very easy as the iaudio shows up as another hard drive in my computer and it also has a program - Jetshell - which splits the screen in half with your PC in the top half of the screen and the iaudio in the bottom half so its as simple as a drag&drop and you're ready to go. Extra features such as the FM radio, line in recording and an integrated microphone make this my favourite mp3 player of all time. I cannot praise Cowon enough for their excellent design and features although the radio can be a little fuzzy in certain areas. This iaudio is the 20gb version although there is lso a 40gb version. It cost me £160 about a year ago, so I'm sure it will have dropped in price slightly. I have seen several second hand iaudio on ebay for under £100, and as the iaudio is metal, unless they have been dropped... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Multi-use; very very stylish; light; robust
Disadvantages: controls on the remote can be fiddly for we old codgers. Don't always work as expected.

...This is one amazing machine. It is small light and very very stylish with a metal casing finished in metalic colours (mine is gunmetal grey). I have is the 20Gb version but there is a 40Gb one with the same physical size. A real shame to hide it in a pocket - it's far more stylish than ALL competitors - but then the tiny in-line remote with screen makes it un-neccessary to take the machine from the pocket to change channels or tracks - or to turn it on or off. A major advantage over competitors. The remote includes a clip to attach to a collar or pocket. The FM radio is a boon but reception can be iffy as you move around because the aerial is the cabling. The remote is a bit fiddly for we more elderly people but the small screen is amazingly easy to read without reading specs! But then the remote doesn't always properly adjust... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: 40GB of Storage, Easy to use, Works with all USB compatible Operating Systems, Price
Disadvantages: Loading time at startup. International version is better than US version.

...The best MP3 player I've owned. If you patch it with European or Korean firmware, you'll lose the DRM feature but you will be able to wach movies. The price is very low compared to the IPOD and it has great compability by supporting WMA, MP3, OGG and WAV music files. The player works like a generic USB harddrive, and is therefore compatible with all operatingsystems that support this feature (MacOS, Windows and Linux does). The only problem with the player is the startup time, when the player is full (40GB) it takes over a minute to load, this makes the 40GB only useful if you have about 20GB music and 20GB large files. The US version of the player comes with charger, USB cable (can be charged via USB) and stereo headphones (medium quality)... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful