Cowon iAudio X5/X5L Appreciation Thread... - Page 3

This is the larger battery on the left, smaller on the right. In the X5L, there are two extra wires coming out of the smaller battery that connect to the larger battery by a plug.



Bare X5L, no batt or HD.

Batt pics:




Replacement battery.

I wish I took more pics of it, but a user on iAudiophile.net has a pretty extensive amount of pics of when he did the operation.

Nothing from them. Form filled out. E-mail sent through teir site. They're starting to piss me off. I own 3 of their products.

The X5 also rolls bass off (especially out of the LOD which is horrid), but at least it has a warm sound to accompany it. In that way, it is like the AMP3 which rolls off bass, but has undulating treble for a decent atmosphere. With rockbox though, the X5 and D2 are so much better, but I would take the X5 over the D2 any day.

You bet!

I got about 12:36 out of it when I ran the battery benchmark from the 90% level, so I'm guessing 14:00 in all? I just ran my main playlist in order at a normal listening level, and the songs are different formats, so that's why. If they were all the same I'd say 17-18 hours would definitely be the output.

Did you just replace one of your X5L batteries or both. If both, what replacement battery did you replace the other battery with?

After posting that question I realized that you probably removed the larger battery to make for an 80GB drive. Is that true?

Now that you have used both Palm Tungsten E2 1050 mah and iPod Photo 1200 mah batteries, which do you think is best overall? If you were to repeat the exercise a third time, would you use one of them or try something different?

I need to replace both batteries in two 30GB X5L's or, alternatively, replace one battery and install larger hard drives. Shortly after buying the X5L's four years ago I started wishing I had selected 60GB drives instead of large batteries, because it didn't take long to fill the storage space. However, the batteries in both X5L's have remained usable for four years of heavy use, because of their large reserve battery capacities. The past year battery charges have lasted only a couple hours or so, but that is generally more time than we have to listen in single sessions, so the service life has been great. Now that I have the opportunity to reverse my original decision and switch large drives and small batteries I'm not sure I actually want to do that.

Since this thread started as an iAudio X5/X5L appreciation thread, I would like to add that my wife and I have had a lot of satisfaction with our X5L's. Other players have various features that appeal more to some users, but I wouldn't trade our X5L's for anything else that we have owned or tried.

I replaced one battery, and got rid of the bigger one.

I haven't been using it as much as I'd like lately, but I think you can't go wrong with either one. I want to do another benchmark to make 100% sure that this is 1200 mah to see the timing, but thus far both have been doing pretty well. I think I'd stick with the 1200 mah battery ,unless you can't stand anything iPod related.

I'd recommend putting in the larger hard drive if you have a large collection, unless you need the 20+ hours of battery life.

I love the X5 as well. Amazing player if you can get your hands on one!

After considering a large number of X5L replacement battery options I purchased two MegaCapacity batteries described on EBay as:

Battery For IAUDIO X5L 20G 1100Mah
Battery For Cowon IAUDIO X5L 30G 2200Mah Lion

They were shipped from Hong Kong the day after I placed the order and arrived 14 days later, even though they were ordered 15 days before Christmas. They are identical in size to the original batteries except for being very slightly thicker. The extra thickness made the fit slightly tight, but they fit with no problems. I have professional soldering tools which made installation easy, but the required soldering could be risky without the right tools and experience.

I haven't totally discharged my new batteries to check their combined storage capacity, but after three hours of use the charge indicator still shows full-charge as it did when the original batteries were new. Even though most users have little need for more than 30 hours of play time, having such large capacity results in the batteries being only slightly discharged during typical listening periods, which enhances battery life. That likely is the reason my original batteries lasted four years of daily use, compared to the much shorter useful battery lifetimes experienced by most X5 users.

That's great to hear!

If anyone is in need of a larger X5L batt, please PM me. I just pulled one from another X5L unit. It still holds a very good charge, and should last you a few months, if not years. I'm selling it for cheap, as I'd just like to get rid of it.