Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great player, good value, April 20, 2007
This player is a very solidly constructed mp3 player (the weighty feel confirms this even though the unit is not that heavy) that has great sound, good interface, and a good mix of features and EQ settings for the price.
The battery life is stated at 52 hours music and 10 hours video, and this was confirmed by my research at CNet's review, who clocked in at 51 hours and a few minutes and roughly 9.5 hours of video time. I can say from practical use of this product that I do not worry about battery life like I did with my Samsung mp3 player, although that was hard drive-based.
The touch screen interface is a little gimmicky in my opinion, more of a "wow" factor. However, when looking at the overall design, the touch screen does help in enlarging the screen size, with all the other buttons on the top of the unit. The interface is fast and responsive, very important for mp3 players and for me since I'm always on the go. Its possible to operate this unit single handedly like iPods.
The quality of the screen is very nice, very clear text, although they are quite small sometimes. I've had to squint a few times to see what I was pressing while on the run. Don't let this be a turnoff though, since the video quality was nice when being played back (so far I have only viewed the promo video that came with the unit, none of my own clips).
Sound quality is top notch, and EQ settings can be individually changed, however, beware the radio. I have heard some problems with people receiving poor feedback through the radio feature (Cowon America's product forums), and personally have heard some occasional static when walking around the city.
The transferring of music went by quickly, and can be done with USB going through Windows Explorer. No need for specialized software that needs to integrate with the player. The ability to sync with specialized software is available, although I have never tried it.
Overall very impressed with the player. Forget the stylus, it doesn't really help keep my unit standing, not that I'd need to anyways.
<<This review is subject to edits, as I continue to use the player, its only the first week that I've had this unit>>
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great player, minimal drawbacks, May 13, 2007
Great sound, excellent quality screen for video, amazing battery life, and straight forward touch screen (note my five stars)
However, things to be aware of: Almost all videos must be coverted to specific resolution .avi file before they can play, which can be time consuming. My P4 at 3GHz converts at ~ 2.5x speed (1h movie takes ~ 25min to convert)
The touch screen is easily damaged, not quite Ipod nano sensative, but ABSOLUTELY buy a protective screen cover or a case. Scratches will dull the video experience (learned the hard way)
The on-screen text looks like 4 or 5 point font, including the text file reader. Reading the screen takes some effort.
TV out only plays in the player's resolution and is fairly pixilated on a large screen.
Skip the "stylus", don't buy the automobile mount.
Bottom Line: My favorite toy, incredible bang for buck. Strongly recommend it. However... now that the Cowon Q5 is on the horizon, what's a nerd to do?
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very good now, could be excellent soon, January 6, 2008
I got myself one of these for Christmas, to use while working out. I'm a Linux-only kind of guy. Transferring files was no problem at all, since it just presents itself as a USB storage device same as a thumb drive, but it took me a while to figure out how to convert video for it (especially how to get the audio and video sync'ed properly). This is apparently a common and much-discussed problem; the d2-convert script that's out there on the web seems to do a good job for both DVD content and avi/mp4 stuff I've downloaded from the web. A little more flexibility or at least better documentation would be a big plus here; that cost them half a star.
Since figuring out how to get video onto it, my experience with the device has been very pleasant. The screen is simply beautiful, the sound is good, the battery life is excellent, the interface is intuitive (though it does often seem to require a tap or two more than it should). However, Cowon does lose another half-star because yesterday the unit appeared totally dead for no apparent reason. It didn't respond to power-on, or to connecting via USB to my computer (which normally results in the screen waking up to tell you you're connected). The reason this only cost them half a star is that I was able to find the solution pretty quickly on Cowon's web site; there's a reset button between the power and USB ports which, if pressed with a paper clip, puts the unit back into its normal power-off state. Voila, my little companion was back. While it would be better if such things never happened, the fact that it was easily solved kept it from being a disaster.
The reason for my review title is that I believe the D2 is only a firmware/documentation update or two away from being darn near perfect. If I were designing a device in this category at this price point, this - with the couple of changes already noted - would be it. This is the second Cowon device I've owned, BTW (the other's a G3). They might not be the most familiar name in the business, but because of these experiences I've come to think they're one of the best.
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