Cowon iAudio Q5 60GB Portable Media Player

If the Cowon iAudio Q5 was a super car it would be the Bugatti Veyron. Technologically advanced super powerful exclusive and reassuringly expensive. Your jaw is probably not quite off the floor having looked at the price. The Q5 is not so much an MP3 player or even a Portable Media Player it’s more akin to an ultra-mobile media PC. It runs a mobile version of Windows (WinCE 5.0 Professional) as its operating system – this means you’ve got the familiarity of MSN Messenger Internet Explorer and Microsoft Word. Some may regard the presence of the ubiquitous Windows logo as a bit of hindrance – worry not Cowon have integrated their own software which auto-loads spritely once Windows is up and running. Before we examine Cowon’s unique Wing Click interface the Q5’s majestic 5 inch 16 million colour widescreen LCD screen is quite simply jaw dropping. Probably the best complement one could pay to the clarity the richness and the vibrancy of its reproduction is that colours look real. They are not oversaturated for dramatic effect like in other big name brands the screen is not too bright it’s balanced to perfection. The entire screen is touch sensitive in some other portable media players this leads to a slight opaqueness due to the extra layer of protection needed on the screen’s surface – the Q5 features none of this. The touch screen interface is unfussy straight forward and immediate. You can navigate either using your fingers or the extendable stylus stored in the top right hand corner of the player. The Q5 does not employ fancy unnecessary menu graphics this is a serious performer. Via the Wing Click GUI you can easily flip modes features and settings by the category grouped icons that appear vertically to the left and right ...