It's Official: Cowon's iAudio 7 Comes with a Facelift and Flash!

What could sound better than the Cowon iAudio 6? Well? the iAudio 7, of course. Cowon is all set to bring some competition on the PMP market with its latest offering.

Without too much effort, you'll notice that the Cowon iAudio 7 is the successor of the iAudio 6 player, with only a few changes in the design of the player. What is hidden inside is the fact that the mini 0.85" hard drive has been replaced by pure flash memory, packed in 4Gb or 8GB sizes.

On the outside, there were no major improvements. It sports the same 1.3" 260K color OLED screen. The same glossy black design, and the red shade that completes the elegant shape. It looks the same as its microdrive predecessor, the iAudio 6.

The player comes with hardware improvements that are definitely more important than a simple design facelift, drawing the attention on the functions rather than on the design. But the use of flash memory did not result in a slimmer player, as expected, even though it delivers triple the battery life of its predecessor at 60 hours.

Regarding the capabilities, Cowon enabled the player to read MP3, WMA, ASF, Ogg Vorbis, and FLAC. As most Cowon players, this one also comes with additional features such as: FM radio, voice recorder and support for XviD, TXT, and JPEG files, so it also comes with the capability of delivering photos. It is great for those who travel across short distances or commute. So, it has bigger battery, and reduced power consumption of the components, such as OLED and decoder.

Even though Cowon gave no precise information regarding the availability or the price tag, there are rumors that the player is going to swim in Korean waters first, starting this month. Being launched in two different versions, the iAudio 7 is expected to cost $182 for the 4GB version and $246 for the 8GB. So start saving that pocket money!

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