Welcome to the first edition of the IMO (In My Opinion).  These are opinions, views, reviews, thoughts, and such that are wholly my own and not speaking for anyone else even *if* they agree with me.

 SO! Now that's been said, let's get this show on the road.  I'm reviewing the iaudio U3 by Cowon.   This will not be some major review where you'll find breakdown of technical information or schematics of the products.  This review is written based upon my experiences and thoughts on the product.   Christmas was very good to me this year and with some of the extra funds I walked away with I decided to purchase some sort of MP3 player.  I flat out didn't want any kind of ipod.   I've never been one to follow a fad or jump on a bandwagon just because "everyone else is" and that's how I see everything ipod.

Alright, I wanted an mp3 player so I came up with a list of features that I was wanting:

• MP3 capabilities - duh
• Flash drive – so I can use it when working out
• 1gig min. – got to have plenty of room
• FM radio – I decided this once I learned that it was an option on some.  Got to have my Russ Martin show
• PC/Mac useable – I work with both types and needed something that could be plugged into both.

So that’s the criteria I was looking for and scoured research sites for professional and personal opinions of the different manufactures and their products.  After weeks and weeks of research (okay, maybe a few days) I decided on the Cowon iaudio U3.  There’s 2 versions of the U3, a 1gig ($175 when I bought) and a 2gig ($250 at the time).  For the most part the 1gig only comes in white while the 2gig only comes in black.  I read some rumors that you can get a black 1 gig from certain places in Korea but guess where I don’t live?  Alright well here are some of the features of the U3 I picked up are:

• 1 gig storage
• FM radio and 24 presets (does anyone really use more than 10?)
• JPG viewer
• Movie player – via a special format but they provide the conversion software.  Btw, the screen is really small.  This is a great bonus feature but if you’re wanting something just to watch movies on then there are better options out there.
• No software required to store files.  I can plug this into any computer and just move my files around
• MP3 player – plays a variety of formats
• Voice recorder – really good quality for the size mic.  Was pleasantly surprised.  I’ve used it a number of times since. Shhhhh…
• FM recorder – cool if you want that sorta thing… don’t need it personally
• Line-in recorder – it’s cool in that I can hook up a real mic to this and record or attach a CD player and record… etc.  Haven’t done much with this option.
• Txt viewer – handy sorta.  It has to be a .txt document and you can only see a few lines at a time.  Not main feature IMO.
• PC/Mac compatible – at the time of my research Cowon was the only one that made compatibility for both types besides Apple.
• No battery – hella nice to know you don’t have to deal with batteries for this thing.  It has a built-in 20hr, roughly, battery that you just need to plug your U3 into a working computer and it recharges automatically.
• Updates often – Cowon seems to support their product pretty well.  There have been like 4 firmware updates in the past 2 months of them tweaking things to everyone’s liking.
• Small – its 2 ¾” x 1 ¼” x 5/8” think of a thick bic lighter.

Some things that I would like to see are:

• More picture type options, right now it just does .jpg.  It would be nice if .gif, .png, etc were available.
• More document viewing types like .doc, .xls, or even .rtf would be helpful.
• Be compatible with USB 1.0.  It works great on 2.0 but has issues with 1.0.  You’ve been warned.
• When doing a firmware update it erases *everything* currently on the drive.  You have to make sure you’ve backed up your files because the update will delete them.  Really annoying the first time it happened to me.
• Some more color options.  Black for 1gig and white for 2gig would be a good start but other colors are what I’m talking about.  Dark green, blue, fuchsia, maroon, zigzag stripes… ok maybe not.

I think this little guy is awesome, plain and simple.  I have it with me all the time because even if I’m not listening to music I can use it for the flash drive capabilities.  It’s also really scratch resistant, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dropped it or banged it into something.  To me this thing has been well worth the money.  I wish I had the 2 gig version but I didn’t want to drop the extra cash so can’t complain.  I’ve provided some links at the bottom of this for your conveyance.  Feel free to look up more websites, reviews, and comments on this thing. 

Well that’s all for the first edition of The IMO.  Hope you all liked the review and found this helpful.  Feel free to send me commentary at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .