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iAudio U2 2GB Digital Music Player with FM Tuner home electronics.

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iAudio U2 2GB Digital Music Player with FM Tuner & Voice Recorder (White)
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	List Price: $249.99 *Features* • 2 GB capacity (33 hours of audio at 128 kbps); high-speed USB 2.0 interface • Supports MP3, Ogg Vorbis, WMA, ASF, WAV • Wide graphics LCD with lyrics display • Rechargeable battery with 20 hours of continuous playback • Voice recorder with FM radio
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iAudio U2 2GB Digital Music Player with FM Tuner & Voice Recorder (White) description
JetAudio's iAudio U2 is one versatile MP3 player and recorder. The device sports 2 GB internal flash memory for about 8.5 hours of 128 kbps digital audio playback or recording--its direct MP3 encoding is perfect for generating digital files from your analog formats like LPs, cassettes, and VHS tape. Encode the files with the U2, then download them directly to your PC or external hard drive for future listening. And with the U2's high-speed USB 2.0 interface, you'll enjoy download speeds of up to 20 Mbps and impressive 25 Mbps transfers when uploading files to the device.

The U2's super-slim body fits easily in your hand or pocket, and the its 5-direction key makes operation a snap, affording one-handed control of most common functions. You can use it for file transport and/or storage, too. The U2 also features a FM Radio and a full-function voice recorder with multiple bitrate options. Preset your favorite FM channels (with custom channel names) for one-touch access to your favorites.

Enjoy high-end sound reproduction with support for multiple codecs, including MP3, WMA, ASF, and even high-quality linear-PCM WAV files with brilliant reproduction (Ogg Vorbis compatibility is under development and will be supported by a firmware upgrade). Using Macintosh or Linux platforms? You can still use the U2 as a portable hard drive (file transfer only).

View all your file information on the unit's bright, 4-line graphic LCD, which features a bright and cool-looking indigo-blue backlight. At-a-glance function icons make interpreting the display a piece of cake. A cool new feature even supports the display of song lyrics (via associated ALC data).

Tiny and light like the U2 itself, the unit's rechargeable lithium polymer battery provides up to 20 hours of continuous playback. You can charge the battery using the supplied AC adapter or through your computer via a USB connection. Charge time is 2 hours in normal mode, 6 hours in slow-charge mode.

Discover true, rich bass sound using onboard BBE Sound, which JetAudio selected for its the clarity of its enhancement. With a total of 6 top-of-the-line sound effects (5-band EQ, BBE, Mach3Bass, MP Enhance, and 3D Surround and Pan), the U2 can create up to 1.2 trillion different sounds.

You can search playlists through navigation while listening to a different song. The user interface is as simple as the Windows OS. You can create folders by favorite musicians and manage all your songs, files, playlists, and settings directly from your computer. CD ripping, file transfer, and even radio channel settings are controlled via this simple interface.

You can also create and edit playlists directly on the U2. Random, repeat, and other playback modes are available. (The player will support M3U playlists via a Firmware upgrade.) The supplied JetLogo program lets you design and transfer your own animated logo to the player.

As technologies change, your audio player shouldn't be left behind. New codecs and functionality will be supported with regular firmware updates available from JetAudio. Cresyn-brand headphones are a standard accessory, and the U2 also comes with a carrying case and a convenient neck strap.

What's in the Box
MP3 player, stereo headphones, an installation CD, a user's manual, a carry case, a carry necklace/lanyard, a USB jack, USB and analog line-in recording cables, and a power adapter.

iAudio U2 2GB Digital Music Player with FM Tuner & Voice Recorder (White) Customer Reviews

♥♥♥♥♥

Excellent Sounding Player with some minor drawbacks

PROs

The Sound is excellent. And to me, this is the important thing. What's the point of having a great mp3 player and then skimping on the headphone amplifiers? This unit goes LOUD. I've had an Creative Zen and an iRiver and I think this goes considerably louder than both of those.

The Sound enhancement/EQ is excellent. There are many different sound enhancement possibilities that you can apply and all of them you can apply independently of each other. They include a 5-band EQ (which goes into the negative as well as positive), BBE Sound, Mach3Bass which emphasizes and tightens up the bass, MP Enhance which is supposed to improve sound on compressed audio, 3D Surround which is a bit gimmicky in my opinion, and Pan which could come in use. The great thing is that you can apply any or all of these effects independently, and most of them have a 1 to 10 scale of how much you want to apply it. So as you can guess, you've got a lot to work with in terms of making your audio sound great. The only one I ended up using was the Mach3Bass, I tend to not want to go crazy on stuff, especially for techno type songs where the sound is already optimized and too much bass will distort the signal.

Easy computer hookup. You don't even really need the software--just plug it in via USB and XP recognizes it. It also synchronizes with Windows Media Player.

Size: this thing is about the size of a pack of gum. It's smaller in width and height than the iPod Shuffle and about 2 or 3 times as thick. It is extremely light.

Easy charging of the built-in lithium ion battery. The U2 charges almost the same way an iPod Shuffle does. You connect it directly to a USB port with a tiny dongle (or a standard USB cable) and it charges. When it comes to mp3 players I prefer the rechargeable battery to save on battery costs and I think this unit would have been slightly larger and weigh a bit more if they'd built it with a AA battery.

CONs

No m3u playlist support. This to me is the biggest drawback of this unit. You can work around it, depending on what you're trying to do since they do give a lot of flexibility in terms of play modes. I took a playlist I had made in Windows Media Player and synchronized all the songs. I put them in a single folder and chose the cryptically named "Song Time" play mode. They played in the order of the WMP playlist.

Bad shuffle implementation. If you have a folder with 10 songs and you want to play them on shuffle, you want the songs to come up in a random order, but you want to hear songs you haven't heard yet before going back to songs that you've already heard. That's not the case with the random on the U2. It seems to bring up just any random song regardless of whether it's been played. So this isn't too useful.

The documentation is pretty bad. There are a number of features on this (like bookmarks) which are not even documented. And a few aspects of the player seem badly worded, although for the most part it's okay. I upgraded the player to the latest firmware and it was not as straightforward as it could have been.

Navigation/display is slightly sucky. I own an earlier model of the iRiver flash player with the same joystick type interface. I think iAudio's implementation of it is pretty straightforward, much better than iRiver's earlier implementation of it (I can't speak for their newer implementation if it's changed). Although it does what it needs to do, it's not an ideal interface. The iPod Nano seems more poetic, having a larger screen to surface ratio. At the same time, you can hold this thing in your pocket and change the volume or songs without looking at it.

NOTE: I use Etymotic ER4 earbuds (highly recommended) so I was not using the buds that the iAudio U2 came with and can't comment on them. I use these earbuds on all my players so I think I can compare the player itself with other mp3 players.

NOTE 2: If you're looking for reviews, I believe all the iAudio U2 models are identical other than the flash drive size. Check out some reviews on the 256MB, 512MB, and 1 GB model.

Non User