Technology Corner

Posts Tagged ‘Cowon’

Cowon may be a bit of an underdog in the U.S. market by sales, but this Korean company that knows how to make a quality player MP3. A solid and compact player dominated by a 2.5-inch screen. Cowon D2 is a rather geeky PMP, which fits perfectly into the palm of your hand, ready to play a 30-frame video, photos and music at the touch of a virtual button. With up to 4GB of internal flash storage plus an SD card slot–and a 50-hour battery life–the D2 can keep you mindlessly occupied for hours on end.

The Devices controls are along the top, which includes a power switch, volume up / down, and the menu / custom buttons, as well as a pinhole mic for voice recordings. The AC power jack and standard USB mini ports (AC adapter and USB cable are included) are covered by a plastic door on the left side next to the headphone jack, and an SD card slot is on the bottom.

D2 is shown as an external drive on Macs and PCs (and Linux boxes), and can synchronize with Windows Media Player or MTP-compatible client. Using the touchscreen is surprisingly easy, thanks to just the right amount of sensitivity and a mostly well-thought-out interface that works well with your fingers or the included stylus. The D2 can play WMA (including PlaysForSure audio content), MP3, OGG, FLAC, WAV, and APE, plus AVI files (320 by 240 or less). To create playable video files.

The integrated FM tuner is sensitive enough to pick up even fringe stations very well that make it easy to record radio at up to 256Kbps in MP3 format. The voice recorder also works fairly well, though the tiny pinhole mic is very easy to overload.

The D2’s sound quality with the stock earbuds is very good right out of the box–partly because of the strengthening of several sound modules active by default. Video and photo playback are both excellent in terms of clarity, smoothness, and color. Battery life is one of the greatest victories of the D2: It will play audio for around 50 hours and video for 8 to 10 hours–very impressive on both counts.