A versatile, feature rich device!
Pros:
Battery life!, line-in recording, FM radio/recording, voice recording, sound quality
Cons:
Only one playlist! No iTunes, only available by order
The Bottom Line:
Make sure what you want: features and battery life (iAudio 7) or ease of use, iTunes and accessories (iPod). I recommend for features/battery life.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
I had researched the iAudio 6 over a year ago and decided if they added flash memory and dropped the price I would buy one. They did and I did. The iAudio 7 was introduced and I took the plunge. I was looking for an MP3 player that was more than an MP3 player. I wanted line-in recording, FM radio/recording and at least 8 gigs memory. The I7 has all of these and costs less than a comparable iPod. I mention iPod because it is the benchmark all that all other MP3 players are compared. It has awesome battery life and decent radio reception. I can pick up some distant radio stations, but not all that I desired. The USB cable is a common one (one that I use for my camera and gps!) and loading is a breeze.
Carefully note the following: I am not a computer whiz and downloading tunes off the internet was not a primary goal. I haven't used anything other than iTunes (my kids have iPods) and as far as I know, this one can't sync to iTunes. There are other services which can be used for this, but I haven't ever used them and can't comment on this. However, loading all my cds through Windows Media Player is simple. BUT, if ease of use, iTunes and accessories are what you want, iPod might be best.
I've found the sound quality excellent, sometimes hearing things in songs that I have never noticed before. I'm not a fan of ear buds, but that's what you get with any player.
Apparently, you can only make one playlist, a limitation that I find surprising and disappointing.
There was a brief initiation into using the controls and I now breeze through all the menus. You can adjust the sensitivity of the controls, which I recommend setting to the least sensitive.
I haven't had any issues so I can't comment on support. This concerned me because my daughter had two iPods DOA and simply took them back to the store. There would be a wait if you had to return this one.
I've seen concerns with the size of this device, but I couldn't call this player large. It is thicker than an iPod but smaller otherwise.
I understand that this has video capability, but the small but clear screen would make viewing a hassle.
