My Review of the iAudio X5L (30GB)
Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2005 11:39 pm
Well I finally got my iAudio X5L 30GB DAP for christmas. It is awesome! It is not too much thicker then my M3 was so its not too big but its definately sturdy. I have to admit it looked cool when I started it up but it was kinda slow and buggy so I upgraded the firmware to 2.10beta5 (the latest) which made it faster and fixed some of the buginess. Although it is still somewhat buggy I am using a beta version so Ill just wait for them to release the full version. Now as far a watching movies it is very small so if you really are after video playback I would get a PMP but this is great for audio because it fits in your pocket. Video playback was just the iceing on the cake, and I don't intend on using it that much. Audio playback is the best I have seen in any player, it (fully) supports basically any format you throw at it and makes it sound awesome. The USB-Host feature is awesome. I plugged it into my M3 and transfered the PortableGaim and PortableFirefox folders (I use them in school) without needing to touch my computer. This is a great way to preview songs from other peoples collections on their DAPs or get pictures from a digital camera (which I have not tried yet). The navigation takes a little getting used to but it not near as hard as the M3. As far as the size I think its perfectly sized, maybe a little chubby but it is the "L" series.
My only complaints for this are it can be buggy and you have to use the dock to use line-in, line-out, USB (to the computer not USB-Host), and to power it. Overall this is a great player and would recommend it to anyone who wants a very feature rich audio player.
BTW: I got this from newegg for only $300! (its more than that used on eBay)
EDIT: sorry forgot to mention it works perfectly with Linux just like the M3. Just drag and drop.
EDIT: Well I upgraded my firmware to 2.10beta7 and its not buggy now (yes you can upgrade firmware in Linux). Kinda odd though the latest firmware is not at iaudio.com but cowonamerica.com. Also I found out my old remote for my M3 also works perfectly on my X5L which is cool. Now I'm loving my X5L even more!
My only complaints for this are it can be buggy and you have to use the dock to use line-in, line-out, USB (to the computer not USB-Host), and to power it. Overall this is a great player and would recommend it to anyone who wants a very feature rich audio player.
BTW: I got this from newegg for only $300! (its more than that used on eBay)
EDIT: sorry forgot to mention it works perfectly with Linux just like the M3. Just drag and drop.
EDIT: Well I upgraded my firmware to 2.10beta7 and its not buggy now (yes you can upgrade firmware in Linux). Kinda odd though the latest firmware is not at iaudio.com but cowonamerica.com. Also I found out my old remote for my M3 also works perfectly on my X5L which is cool. Now I'm loving my X5L even more!