Battery - iaudio u3

[Austrian]

Hello guys!

unfortunately, i cannot find any g3 and i5 players at any store in europe (anyone knows a shop?) because they aren't produced anymore.. but my next player has to be an iaudio because of its sound quality..

the u3 is very attractive, but i hate built in batteries. so my question is: what about the replacement when the battery is dead? the bigger ones are nice to open and change the battery as I read it on this site, but what about such little ones?

thx a lot!

[dfkt]

Well, you'd have 2 years warranty in the EU - so if the battery dies in that time, Cowon Germany replaces it for free (after that for a somewhat reasonable fee, something like EUR 30-50, AFAIK). There should really be no problem with Li-Ion batteries nowadays... they make it for at least three years if you treat them right.

[Austrian]

sounds good..

would you personally recomend me the u3 or e.g iaudio6? there isn't such a big difference except the hard drive right?

an other question: is there a decrease of sound quality with u3 2,4 gb compared to the 1gb player? i read about such a phenomenon with the 30gb and 60gb vision:m player..

thx

[dfkt]

I'd definitely choose the U3 over the i6, mainly because of the HDD, but also cause I don't like the diagonal touchstrip interface. I'll take a normal joystick any time.

Different SQ on the 30 and 60GB ZVM? That sounds like an urban legend to me. I'm 100% sure that's not the case with different capacities of any Cowon player (and probably not true for the ZVM either).

[Austrian]

just read it in a review @chip.de .. no matter!

concerning the 2 years of warranty - what if I buy it via amazon, who will take it for a reparation?

[dfkt]

I bought my X5 also from Amazon.de, and sent it straight to Cowon Germany for repair... no hassle at all.

[Austrian]

which problem was there with yours?

[dfkt]

http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum...ead.php?t=8889

[Austrian]

seems to be a really exceptional service.. but you surely had to pay for this repairing, don't you? self-destruction also included within the warranty?!

[dfkt]

No, I didn't pay anything... thank you Cowon.

[Austrian]

straaaange.. but perfect !

[derf]

But is the battery replaceable without sending it to Cowon after it's out of warranty? Maybe three years is long in the electronics world, but it is not so long in the real world. I tend to keep my stuff for a long time until I can't repair it.

[Austrian]

I would spend some money for a repairing of a well working thing, you need not always go with the new trends and market strategies buying a new one (sounds a little like grandmothers attitude on changing wallpapers, but why not..)

propably I will want to keep my stuff on the contemporary technical level, but it would just be too bad if an mp3-player got inoperative only due to a broken battery..