I hate to agree with the people on iaudiophile.net but I an starting to believe that cnet is a lil bit ipod sided. On their rating, the ipod scored the for feature as the x5(l) when the x5 does so much more. I would suggest teh iaudio x5l over the new sony. My reasons are as listed: 35 hour battery life, color screen, OTG-USB, video playback, photo viewing, great sound quality (95db), and many others. There have been many people complaining about the lack of id3 tags, but I read that the new firmware has fixed the lack of id3 tags (for better or worse, since some people bought this player for the tree-organizing). This is only a matter of opinion, you should base ur decision on how u like the physical appearance and how it feels along with all the features.
i cant decide between these two units. ive done extensive research, read the editors reviews but still cant decide. has anyone on these boards used either of these hard drive players?

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