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Cowon iAudio U2 review
By Andreas "Captain" Ødegård






Introduction:
Small, ultra-portable mp3 players are in these days. Players like the Sansa Express and the Creative Zen Stone (plus) can both be used as primary players, or simply act as additions to larger, less portable players. When you move away from the higher priced players, drop video, wifi and other relatively new features, you can suddenly go back a few years in time to before these features were available, and you'll have more players to choose from. The Cowon iAudio U2 is one such player. Lauched back in 2004, this player has already gotten a predecessor, the iAudio U3 video capable DAP. The U2 is a completely different player though, with a small monochrome screen, rechargeable battery, radio and line-in support. How will this player match up to the newer feature packed players of 2007?

Quick Specs:
-Audio: MP3, MP2, WMA, ASF and WAV (Up to 44.1khz Stereo). OGG supported in newer firmwares according to a user.
-Screen: 128x64 pixel backlit LCD display
-Dimensions: 73.8mm X 25.0mm X 18.0mm
-Weight: 34 grams
-Rated battery life: 20 hours
-Other features: FM Radio, line-in/voice/FM recording, BBE sound enhancements, clock, alarm, sleep timer, on player delete

In the box:
The U2 comes with a decent amount of accessories. You have your standard stock earbuds, line-in cable, USB mini cable, USB mini plug, lanyard, plastic case, software CD (Win98 drivers, JetShell 4.10 PRO, JetAudio 6.21 Basic), warranty card, quick installation guide, and user’s guide. Judging from pictures on the internet it seems like the plastic case is a replacement for the case that used to come with the player, a flexible fabric case from the looks of it. There doesn't seem to be any accessories available for the U2 other than what's in the box, so the included case is a big bonus, although personally the older case looks better than what I got. Cowon chose to include two USB solutions, the standard USB cable along with a USB to mini USB plug, which is meant to make the D2 function like a USB stick. With the U2's relatively small size, it's an OK solution, but it’s not something you’ll want to have plugged into the player at all times. The line-in cable is a standard cable with a 3.5mm (1/8") male jack plug in each end. The U2 has a line-in jack right beside the headphone jack on the player, so you don't need a subpack, adapter or anything like that to use line-in - purely plug and pl...record.

For headphones, Cowon went with the standard crappy earplug that almost every player comes with, they are pretty and all in all nothing to write home about. Last of the "physical" accessories is the lanyard, which is the same type as what those Chinese el cheapo players come with, except for the Cowon logo. A nice addition, but could have been done better as a lanyard is such a small and cheap piece of accessory that people actually might use with a small player like this.
By far the heaviest piece of “accessory” in the box is the user's manual, which is actually a physical book with the U2 and not a PDF file on the software CD. The software CD itself isn't required unless you want to use the included applications or you have windows 98, as the U2 is MSC only.

Design:
The U2 looks pretty much like a pack of gum, it's a typical stick design and have it's similarities with the Sansa Express. It's plastic all the way through, but the build quality still seems solid as it’s all one piece, it has no sharp edges, and there is no funny business with the plastic mold. Seeing the player uses a rechargeable battery, there is also no battery cover to worry about, those things seem to be the first to go on players like this that uses AA/AAA batteries. The silver plastic on the back is neat, however the black plastic front could easily be used by CSI to collect fingerprints. The weight fits the player well, and it's not a hassle if you want it around your neck (seeing the size that would hardly be a problem). By the screen you have a very visible hint of the age of this model, as it has the retarded Cowon slogans printed on it, something Cowon did with players a few years ago, but seems to have stopped with recent players like the D2 and iAudio 7 (at least less noticeable). I don't know about other people, but I'm not a big fan of having "digital audio player" and "color sound" printed on my otherwise nice looking player. I'm fully aware that it is a DAP, and as for "color sound", the meaning of that must have gotten lost in translation.

Beside the tiny screen there is the joystick, which controls pretty much everything on the player. The only other two buttons on the player beside the joystick sit on the top. There’s the REC/A-B button (why the manufacturers keep assigning A-B it's own button is beyond me), the play/pause/on/off button, and there is also a hold switch. The internal microphone is located on the back, along with the lanyard hole, some technical info and a nice serial number sticker that will no doubt fall off by the time you need it. On the underside there is only the reset button, which requires a thin needle or something the sort to be pushed. The right end of the player has the USB mini plug under a rubber protection cap that actually sit pretty well and seems solid, unlike some similar caps I've seen (erm Cowon iAudio D2). The left end has the headphone  and line-in jacks side by side, and it's a little too easy plugging your headphones into the wrong one if you're not fully awake.

Software:
The U2 is 100% MSC/UMS, which means it will install itself on most computers (windows 98 drivers included on the software CD) and come up as a removable drive. The included software, JetAudio, is only useful if you want to rip/burn etc using that software, and has little real value. There are however several applications available online that might be useful for some. Available downloads on cowonglobal.com are JetShell, firmware for the player, LDB manager, myPodder, Win98 driver and JetLogo. LDB manager is a program that lets you add lyrics for your songs, that will display on the player. The myPodder software seems to be for some special non-mp3 pod casts or whatnot. JetLogo is a program that allows you to make your own startup logos for the player.

User Interface:

Controls:
The 5 way joystick controls most of the U2, with the play/pause/on/off button and the rec/A-B button doing more or less only that. The joystick solution works very well on this player, as you'll have no trouble operating any part of the player with one hand, or just two fingers for that matter. You can easily change songs, volume, or do more complicated tasks like changing EQ/BBE settings without having to lend yourself another hand. Operating the player in the pocket is also easy, as you'll immediately know which way is which just from grabbing the player. When you've gotten used to the menus, you can also blindly navigate to EQ/BBE settings or change modes without looking at the screen, as it's only a matter of remembering how many times to push the joystick in this and that direction. Since you can both use the player with one hand and operate it without staring at the screen, the player is perfect for workouts and other "stressful" situations.

Graphical User Interface:
The first thing you notice with the U2 is the lack of a main menu. There is no menu with icons for settings, music, radio and so on, it boots straight into the mode last used. To switch between music, radio, recording etc, you instead push the middle button to bring up the settings menu, choose mode (first setting), and then you can switch mode. This one big settings menu have lots of submenus, from EQ/BBE settings to submenus for each mode. This works pretty good, as you can change any setting without entering that mode first. After using the player for a little while you'll start to remember where everything is, at least the most used submenus like mode and EQ/BBE. Once you know what to push to get to those menus, you can use them without looking at the screen.

Navigating these menus is done solely by using the joystick. Pushing it inwards is select, up/down scrolls through the options and right/left is used to go forwards/back in the submenus. Clicking and holding the joystick for a second brings up another menu depending on which mode you're in. In mp3 player and recording mode it will bring up file browsing. You browse through files like you do with menus, where left/right on the joystick navigates through folders. If you hold the middle button again, you enter "navigation mode", which lets you switch between browsing files, the dynamic playlist, and bookmarks. Clicking the joystick once when a file is highlighted brings up options to play, delete, play intro or add to the dynamic playlist (which is the only type of playlist available).

If you click and hold the joystick in radio mode, you get a list of radio presets. Pressing the play button while in radio mode switches between preset mode and manual mode. In preset mode, left/right with the joystick switches between presets. In manual mode, clicking the left/right joystick moves the frequency finder by half a MHz, while holding either of them finds the next detectable radio signal in either direction.
There is a lot of hidden menus on the U2, accessible by clicking or holding various buttons. A full list of these is included in the instruction manual. The U2 has way more options and features than other players this size, so a good GUI is necessary to keep it clean. While messy at times with hidden menus here and there, the placement of the options is pretty good, and the options you are going to use the most are easily accessible.

Battery:
The player is rated at 20 hours of playback, which from my experience isn't far off. Using the screen a lot, along with having EQ/BBE settings active, reduces the battery life by a bit. Compared to players like the iRiver T50, most of the Sony players and other players with really high battery life, the U2's 20 hours is only average, but still not bad at all. Charging is through USB only, there is an official Cowon AC adapter but it's still a USB plug in the end so as far as I know a AC USB adapter will do the same thing much cheaper. You can't charge and use the player at the same time though, that goes for both USB connection and USB AC adapter.

Features:
FM Radio:
Unfortunately, the U2's radio isn't very good. In-house it's more or less impossible to get a clear signal if you're not living on top of the transmitter, and even outdoors the signal is drastically affected by something as simple as putting the player in your pocket. A lot of people use the radio function, so it's sad to see this function being as bad as it is. On the bright side, you have the option to record radio into 128kbps mp3, use presets, or even program the player to turn on and record radio at a given time, like a VCR for radio. Of course these functions are pretty much useless if you don't get a signal.

Voice Recording:
The max recording quality with the voice recorder is also 128 kbps like with radio recording, and that should be more than enough for the internal microphone. The mic isn't bad though, and with the small size of the D2 and direct to mp3 recording it makes a decent recorder for class or anything you need to record. There is also a voice activation function, so the player records when it detects sound.

In-line recording:
Although sufficient for voice recording and in most cases radio, 128 kbps mp3 comes a bit short when you're dealing with in-line recording. Compared to the D2, the U2's line-in feature is more user friendly since it doesn't require an adapter, and it records to mp3 and not WMA. It also has auto sync, which means the player can split recordings into tracks automatically. All this would be much more useful if it recorded to either a higher bitrate mp3 or better quality WAV (max is 32kHz). Nevertheless, limited quality line-in is better than no line-in, and you're always more likely to use this feature when it doesn’t require an adapter (only a line-in cable).

Other features:
On the surface, the player seems ordinary with mp3, radio and various recording options. Underneath the surface however, you'll notice a ton of features that you normally wouldn’t find on mp3 players this small. For the mp3 player part of the U2, you will most likely love the BBE settings the most, along with the equalizer. You also have a sleep timer that goes all the way to 180 minutes, which means you can set the player to shut off after a said amount of time. You can also use both mp3 player, radio and radio recording as alarm, so you can wake up to the music you fell asleep to, without the player being on the entire time. More so for the mp3 player part you of course have repeat, shuffle and the standard play modes. Bookmarks and dynamic playlist is also a plus, and these stay on the player even after you connect it to the computer (ehem D2). Holding the REC button while playing a track adds a bookmark (that button is configurable though), and that way of doing things works pretty good. With audiobooks I just add a bookmark before shutting down, so I'm backed up if I hit next or something like that.
You can also delete files directly on the player without connecting to a computer, but the same can't be said for folders. There is also a decent amount of settings for you to play with, everything from play speed to screen contrast and button functions can be set manually, although there doesn't seem to be a way to flip the screen like on certain other players, so even if you're left handed you're stuck with the standard screen setup.

Audio:
Since I got the U2 to serve as a more portable, more hazzard-friendly player than the D2 (which is my primary player), I found it logical to compare the two players sound quality wise. I used a home made switch that had both players connected to one headphone, with a switch to toggle between them, and played the same songs simultaneously on both players. By toggling between them I got a chance to compare them more directly than I would have gotten by listening to one after the other. The result of this test was very satisfying, as there is almost no difference whatsoever between the two, both with no EQ or BBE at all and with those turned to the same settings on both players. The D2 is slightly brighter than the U2, and the bass is also a little bit deeper on the D2, but the difference is so tiny that you need extremely good ears to hear it without using such a switch as I used. Also, it's not a matter of one player being slightly better or worse, it's more a matter of a slightly different sound signature. They both sound extremely good both with and without any enhancements. All frequencies are justified and there isn't any noticable flaws in any range.

The EQ comes with some presets and you can also set your own, but the presets themselves cannot be edited. The EQ has 28 steps both in the + and the - range, which is a bit odd, as surely it doesn’t translate to +/- 28dB. The real holy grail on the U2 however is not the EQ, but the BBE settings. Mach3bass is my personal favorite, and this feature improves the bass in a way that can't be matched by normal equalizers or other sound enhancement techniques like SRS WOW. You also have BBE, MP Enhance, and 3D Surround, all of which can help improve some part of the sound, depending on what you like. Some have said the Cowon players don't sound that much better than other players without BBE turned on. That is mostly true, however BBE is what Cowon is all about. It's what gives them the edge, so saying that they aren't that good without BBE is really beside the point, because they DO have BBE. In any case, BBE is something that you will cheerish and love for all it's worth once you've tried it, no matter what your taste in music is.

In addition to the BBE settings and EQ, you also have a pan setting which adjusts the volume in favor of one ear or the other to compensate for hearing difficulties, and you can also speed up or slow down the play speed, which is useful if you for instance listen to an audio book and the reader reads to slow. In the test with the D2 vs. the U2, the D2 was also quicker to start playing the next song after the current one finished, but neither have gapless playback.

The U2 is equipped with a 13 + 13 mW amplifier, which is below what bigger players have but also way more than players like the Zen Stone, Zen V etc. 13 mW is enough to drive most portable headphones. I use the U2 with the 60 ohm Koss KSC75 at about 30 out of 40 volume, so you won't have any trouble with the volume being to low (especially since there is no such thing as EU volume limits in the world of Cowon). As for background hiss, this might occur if you use low impendance IEM's. The same goes for a short scratchy sound that can be heard when changing tracks, but this is also limited to lower impendance headphones. Also, with the Goldring DR150 which is the king of hiss on my D2, I couldn't hear any noticeable hiss even at full volume, and that was without playing music. As mentioned before, there is no gapless playback, which for many is a big downside. A piece of good news for anyone owning a D2 however, is that the resume on the U2 really does resume playing when turned on.

Other thoughts:
The screen of this player is nothing to write home about as it's a standard blue color backlit LCD, however that also means you can sit right in the path of the sun and still see everything clearly. The backlight will not show, but it’s still fully visible. That’s actually more useful than you'd think when using the player outside on sunny days, as anyone with a color screen player might understand. One thing that bothers me with the U2 is the slow startup. When you press play, there's about a 4 sec delay before the iAudio logo appears, followed by the changeable startup animation. All in all it takes about 16 seconds for the player to turn on, which is way to long for a player that has no id3 library to worry about, and only up to 2GB of music on it. If you do not use a startup animation though, it's a bit quicker, but still slow. Go to the SYSTEM folder and delete/remove LOGO.ILB to get rid of the startup animation and speeding up the startup sequence.

I have encountered a few bugs on the player. Once after the player had been connected to the computer with the hold on (not that that’s necessarily the reason), it wouldn't boot up afterwards. The reset button did the trick, however. Another bug was with voice recording. I had recorded a few tracks, one had been corrupted, and as a result the player froze when trying to access that file in the file browser. Reset button did the trick, again.This also happened again a few days later, this time just connecting to the computer helped (didn't try to highlight the corrupted file as I knew what would happen, I just saw the scrambled filename on the player and stayed away). Lastly, I was listening to an audio theatre episode at work, roughly 50 minutes long, and managed to change tracks by accident in the middle of it so it started playing from the beginning again. Fast forwarding being my only option, I tried it, and quickly realized something was wrong. It did resume playing further into the episode after fast forwarding for a while, but the timer didnt move like it should, reset to 0 every time, so I had no means of knowing when to stop fast forwarding. The reason for this was that the bugged track was VBR, and converting the VBR files to CBR resolved this issue.

The player comes with a folder called "MUSIC", which would seem like the logical place to put the music files, but note that when you use the boundary function set to "folder", it will read everything in the MUSIC folder as one folder. This means that if you put folders inside the MUSIC folder, you cannot limit the player to only play from any single one of those folders, which is a bit odd and different from players like the D2 where limiting to folder means any folder or subfolder. Seeing that the U2 only lets you browse by file name and not id3 tag, folders are the only way you can organize your music, and hence this little "bug" quickly gets annoying.

When I got the player, I didn't update the firmware, as the newer version didn't really have any changes I needed. Also, reports on the internet suggests that leaving the firmware part alone might be a good idea, as many people have had troubles with the player after updating the firmware.

Conclusion:
The Cowon iAudio U2 is a brilliant player that would pose a threat to players like the Zen Stone and Sansa Express, hadn't it been for limited availability and a higher price. You do however get a lot more features with this player, BBE being the most heartwarming one. Smaller things like sleep timer and alarm mode helps promote this player as an alternative to a bigger more expensive player, but in all fairness, it's not something you would use as a library player. The small size and limited flash memory makes this player a workout/on the run player more than anything else, and for that it does its job. Firmware bugs do make me raise an eyebrow once in a while, and even though the reset button has worked in those situations, I would prefer that one button to never be used on any player.

Pros:
-Size
-Decent battery life, though not extraordinary
-Excellent audio quality
-UMS drag and drop
-Standard mini USB plug
-Lots of settings and extra features
-Line-in recording without the need of an adapter/subpack
-Navigation is easy and intuitive
-BBE sound enhancements
-Radio recording
-Decent amplifier for the size
-Included accessories
-Records to mp3
-Decent internal microphone
-Screen works very well even in direct sunlight

Cons:
-Firmware bugs
-Weak radio
-Slow startup
-No optional accessories available
-Records only to max 128 kbps in any recording mode
-No MTP or id3 browsing
-No included AC adapter
-No playing while charging
-Rather expensive