

Cowon iAudio 10 has colour therapy, helps you sleep


Well consider us tickled pink. Cowon’s iAudio 10 has just broken cover, and it boasts a unique 'colour therapy' feature to help you relax, get energised, and even go into a deep sleep. Just careful you don't hit the wrong mode before the big meeting.

It might be a little gimmicky, but you've got to do all you can to stand out from the competition. Basically, you can select from a range of colours for the background and the font, your choice of which is supposed to put you in a certain mood. In order for that to work, though, you'd have to stare at the screen the whole time, which, last time we checked, isn't how most people use their MP3 players.

Those modes are (deep breath): concentrate, energy, vitality, refresh, purify, diet (?), activity, release stress, relax, deep sleep. Like we say, we're sceptical, but at least it gives you a range of hues to change up the look.

It's a looker too, with the same curved back plate as the S9, and a cool black front bolted on a white back (though it also comes in white). You operate it via a 3-inch 240x400 pixel resolution touchscreen, though it's TFT rather than the AMOLED seen on some high end phones. And it's slim, at just 6.9mm at its thinnest point, 12.6mm at its fattest.

There's no SD card slot, though it does have 32GB storage, going down to a 4GB model. The battery life has also been boosted from the i9; up to 38 hours for audio and 6.5 for video. Should last you a weekend away without needing a recharge.

As well as colour therapy it comes with support for a lot of file formats, BBE sound enhancements to improve quality, FM radio, voice recorder, built-in speaker, TV-out, and line-in. Those lucky Koreans will be able to buy one with a T-DMB tuner for watching TV, though it won't be much use in the UK.

Cowon has been pretty quiet on these shores of late, but we'll bring you news of a UK release as soon as we get it.