First Looks at the Cowon iAUDIO M3

The recently released Cowon iAUDIO M3 took an interesting design path to cram a 20GB capacity into a package smaller and lighter than an iPod: they took the LCD off the body and moved it to a remote. The M3 measures 4.1"x2.4"x0.56" (compared with the iPod at 4.1"x2.4"x0.62") and weighs only 4.8oz (the iPod is 5.6oz). Finally, the actual players are getting into people's hands and here are two first-look reviews. The first is from Gear @ IGN:

One of the difficulties for companies trying to enter this market is that there are so many good players. I don't mean acceptable players; I mean really solid ones. You really have to offer something special to even get noticed, let alone sell any units. Cowon took an interesting approach by simply making the smallest possible player it could. The result is an HDD portable that is smaller and lighter than an iPod. However, as you'll soon learn, Cowon didn't skimp on any features.

Second is a Head-Fi thread with thoughts (and lots of photos) from a number of forum users [Via DAP Review]:

Everyone is probably wondering about how "not having a screen on the main body of the player" works out. Well, it's not really a trouble once you get used to it. If you own some of the higher-end iMP series (I have the iMP-350), then you'd already know that. However, this really doesn't mean as much for a HD-DAP as for a CD player, since you can fit a HD-DAP in your pocket, while you cannot do the same for a CD-mp3 player. With a CD-mp3 player, it's clear that you don't want to take the player out of its carrying case/backpack/beltstrap every time you want change playlists, etc, but for a HD-DAP which you can fit in a pocket and can easily take out...only having a screen on the remote, IMO, actually has a negative effect on ease of use.

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