Well...I finally had a chance to get my hands on the 60GB IAudio X5 and I'm very disappointed , not with its features, but rather with its build quality (sound familiar with our beloved BMW X5???). The first one I got was DOA (just got a white screen when I powered on...couldn't get it out of that mode no matter what I tried)...had it RMAed . The second one was a little better, but still very flaky. It freezes up on me whenever I moved the unit. I mean, just picking it up the unit may cause a freeze! Turning the unit upsidedown in my hand may cause a freeze! As a matter of fact, rotating the unit in any axis may cause a freeze! What's weird is that whenever it freezes like that, just giving the unit a light tap will usually unfreezes it. That is unbelievably flaky! I'm suspecting a loose contact somewhere in the device or may be even a hard drive tracking problem. Needless to say that I returned it for a refund. This picture is all I have left of my IAudio X5 So I guessed I won't be able to have an X5 playing in my X5

With the short extent of time I had with the X5, I have to say that it is one hell of a device (feature packed)...if only they've gotten the build quality thing right. Great sounds (lots of personalization tuning), great feature sets (FM radio, voice recordings, built-in mp3 encoding, OTG USB, just to name a few), and of course...the easy "drag & drop" file system without requiring extra software to work the thing! The only drawback that I found was with its 10,000 file limit. I filled the thing with about 30GB of various mp3s and video clips and it's already hitting the 7,500 range. At this rate, I can't possibly fill up the device without running into its 10,000 file limit!

Now, I'm seaching for an alternative...any recommendation on a DAP with greater than 60GB capacity, preferably with video capability and "drag & drop" filing system? I'm ruling IPOD out because I don't want to deal with iTune.

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Thanks for sharing your experience with the X5. I was pretty interested in bying it with all the good reviews I read about the sound quality but after your post I will certainely reconsider this. I like the Ipod, I bought one for my daughter few months ago, but like you I do not like the need to use Itune software. The new Ipod with its color display is really nice and as far as I know the ipod is the only mp3 player which can be totaly integrated with BMW cars (display song title and use of all BMW stereo commands) via the IceLink. This is a big plus in my opinion.

It's true that Ipod will integrate nicely with BMW cars, but controlling it is still very limited (I wouldn't exactly call it control when only 5 or 6 playlists are available). The only "real" control function that is available with the Icelink integration is really just the Forward and Reverse button. I have hundreds of albums and would like to be able to jump between them quickly if necessary. Therefore, I will have the player at hands reach anyway. Thus, integration to my car, either through a device such as Icelink or the AUX input wouldn't make much of a difference to me. The only real advantage that I can see with the Icelink interface is that it will charge your Ipod at the same time, but I'm not sure what it will do to the built in battery life (subjecting it to all the unnecessary charge/discharge cycles). Personally, I will only want to recharge a battery when necessary in order to prolong its life span, thus I'm not sure that I want this automatic "recharging" function.

My biggest beef with the Ipod is iTune. If you're not careful, your whole music collection on your computer can be wiped out in an instant. Beside, I'm just plain lazy and don't really want to learn another software if I don't have to My brother-in-law has an Ipod and comparing the sound quality to the IAudio X5, the X5 totally blows it out of the water (I'm comparing the same mp3 file using the same headphone)! At this time, I'm not sure if I want to settle for an Ipod just yet. If anyone has any recommendations, I'm all ears

Current lithium ion batteries actually do BETTER with frequent "topping off". In the days of nickel cadmium batteries, and even some of the technologies after those, you needed to deep cycle them (full discharge followed by full charge) in order to prolong battery life, and avoid memory effect. That is not the case with most current batteries.

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Any rechargeable battery will only have a limited cycle life. Constantly "topping" it off will bring you up to that limit very quickly.

Battery University

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Doc...thanks for the link. Good read! OK...you have convinced me (somewhat) that "topping" off the battery is a good thing for Lithium ion . But it still doesn't detract from the fact that each time you top off the battery, you are basically eating into one of your charge/discharge cycle, in which a lithium ion battery is only good for 300-500 of these cycles. If you do this every single day (assuming that you only drive your car once a day), it means that you will eventually need to replace your battery almost every year. Also, having the thing constantly plugged in and charging it unnecessarily will eventually produce heat...which will kill the battery. In a laptop, it is recommended that you remove the lithium ion battery (to prolong its life) when powered from an external supply. You can't remove the battery from the IPOD. These are the reasons why I don't like to constantly charge a device if it doesn't need to be charged.

So...the bottom line is that there has to be a balance between frequent charging and excessive charging. The Icelink only allows me to do the latter.

I've had mine for about 3 weeks now and haven't experienced any of the problems that you describe... sorry about your bad luck, but mine is rock solid and i'm loving it.

I've shown it to a few buddies and 3 of them have since bought 1 from newegg and none of them have had a problem either....

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You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

i had been waiting all summer for the 60GB to be released. While i was waiting i burned my entire cd collection to an external HD, 85GB worth!

I have to say that this is one of the best toys i've ever purchased... my favorite feature is that you can turn on "random" with "no repeat" and it will shuffle the entire song collection on the disk, so during my commute i have the pleasure of listening to one favorite song after another without touching the joystick, unless i'm not in the mood for the current song and then 1 flick of the joystick to the right will jump to the next random song. It's really gotten me back into music.

That being said, I've also loaded about 10GB of my favorite photographs onto it... it's great to be able to show people pics so easily.

I haven't loaded many videos onto it yet, but a buddy works for MTV in their production department and has been giving me a ton of music videos to load onto the X5. I'm not sure i'll put many on, unless of course there's a hot chick in the video of course

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You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.