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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
38 of 40 found the following review helpful:
 Ipod who? Zune who? Mar 23, 2007
By Fernando Diaz
This is absolutely the best mp3 i have ever owned. What makes it the best?
1. 16 million color 2.5 LCD touchscreen.
2. Battery life is too good to be true. 52 hours audio 10hr video.
3. The best sound, it has how much tweaks, its sick. You can slowdown a song or make it sound like the chipmunks. Has BBE,Wide stereo, enhancement stereo etc.
4. The volume is sooo dam loud. I had a Zune and the volume level was at 20, the lourdest it could go. The D2 level is 50 and at 30 it sounds as high as the zune.
5. You can encode AVI video bitrate at 1.5mbps.Also have WMV which you can encode at 768kbps.
6. No need to install to transfer files, it works like a USB flash drive.
7. You can change backgrounds and if you put a black background and your text is black, you can change the text color to 20 difference colors or make you own.
8. The touchscreen is smooth and flawless. WHen playing music it tells you the info of the file. example bitrate info, Hz etc. Something that is lacking on the big boys.
9. Has tv output, also has a recorder to record conversations.
10. Can view .txt files.
11. Can view pics at very high pixels.
12. Fm tuner, you can record from the FM radio. You can set the bitrate from low to 256kbps.
13. Has a SD slot for more storage. Get a 8 gig SD for a total for 12 gig. Imagine in 2 years when they have 20 gig SD.
14. Great support, firmware updates are always available.
Plus sooo much more.
35 of 38 found the following review helpful:
video, audio, fm radio, and photos too Apr 11, 2007
By Richard Hayward
Having researched portable media players such as the Cowon A2 and Toshiba Gigabeat V30 I was ready to spend considerably more than the price of the Cowon D2. The electronics store in Melbourne gave me an 8% discount off the advertised price, and I was happy to buy the item which I had never even heard of before! There was no reason to give me a discount, they have been selling well. In comparison with those larger players, the D2 has a smaller screen, and has much less memory. But, to make up for this there's an SD slot which is handy for viewing photos from my digital camera. Other features such as touch screen make this an attractive product.
The software that I got with the box includes the PDF manual (version 1.3), a program for converting video, and a browser for transferring files. I needed to upgrade the video conversion program "JetAudio" as the version on the CD did not recognise my device. The PDF manual on the CD was up to date. The date of the CD material appears to be January 2007.
The problem with this player is that you have to format video before it can be viewed - the resultant files are either AVI or MWV and you can choose a range of quality options, but it seems that regular AVI or WMV will not play unless they have been converted. Why is this a problem? Well the conversion time appears to be only slightly less than the duration of the video, in other words a fair bit of waiting around. But I am trying out different conversion options to see what works best. The speed will be improved on a faster computer with more RAM. Luckily, transfer to the device is a very quick process.
First Steps - here's what I suggest that you do:
1. Keep the plastic protective film on the screen - this will protect it.
2. Loop the stylus / stand device through the catch provided on the player.
3. Check out the forum [...]
4. Download and upgrade the firmware and JetAudio software on your D2.
5. Start converting video files using your upgraded JetAudio software.
6. Start saving your 24 favourite FM radio stations into the preset list.
24 of 25 found the following review helpful:
Absoulutely the finest PMP for the money. Jul 09, 2007
By Dan Luther
Cowon has significantly raised the bar in the PMP (Portable Media Player) market with the D2. The sound is amazing, and the 16 million (24 bit) color screen simply has to be seen to be believed.
The 74mw amplifier in the Cowon D2 provides enough power to drive even the most demanding headphones. Likewise the 5-band EQ section with each band featuring adjustable frequencies to 12db and the inner 3 bands featuring adjustable Q widths will allow music lovers to tailor their listening preferences. Most MP3/PMP players would stop there, but the D2 also offers sound shaping through technology licensed from BBE, a company that has been providing recording studios, musicians, and sound system engineers professional sound reinforcement for several years. The combination of bass enhancement, MP enhancement, stereo field enhancement, and 3D surround enhancement allow you to tailor the sound to your particular tastes. Having 10 user-assignable slots allows you to easily store these combinations that can be used with music, movies, different headphones, or even different users.
One would think that a 2.5 inch screen is just too small to watch, and I was one of those detractors, but not anymore. The 16.7 million color screen faithfully reproduces images with a crisp and clear viewing area that you quickly grow very accustomed to watching. Although you have to convert your videos to the specific size of the screen, the provided software does this with ease in a variety of formats.
Probably the best feature of the D2 is the touch-screen interface, which is well thought-out and intuitive. The interface is activated by touching the screen, and virtual buttons appear which are surprisingly easy to navigate, even for people with large fingers. However, those who want a tactile interface aren't left behind, as the three-button pad can be set to skip, pause, or rewind when placed in lock mode. MP3s tagged with embedded images will be displayed as songs are playing, which I found to be a very cool feature; I've spent several hours re-tagging my media collection with these images for the coolness factor.
The battery life on this device is amazing, almost insanely so. Cowon claims 52 hours of battery in music mode, or 10 hours in video mode. While I have not tested these to the extreme, I did watch two movies and listened to several hours of music with my battery meter only dropping one (of four) 'bars'. A note on the battery -- Cowon devotes nearly half the volume of the D2 to the internal lithium-polymer battery, which results in a "thicker" device than some others, just over 5/8 inch. This battery can be charged over USB, or using the provided A/C adaptor, which charges the batter much faster.
The Cowon D2 is expandable with an SDHC compliant slot, meaning that any SD card you have will work in this, as well as the newer high-capacity SDHC cards, which currently are available in capacities up to 8GB, with cards in 16 and 32 GB being announced. Connectivity is through a standard min-USB cable. You can operate the D2 in standard "mass storage" mode where you just drag and drop files into the folders, or you can operate this in MTP mode which is supposedly compatible with Microsoft's "Plays For Sure" program and other subscription based services. I cannot vouch for this, but I have no reason to doubt it.
I've waited for about three years to upgrade my MP3 player, waiting for the perfect player to come along; the Cowon D2 nicely fits that bill. I was looking for a player that had the following qualities (in order of importance):
1) Awesome sound
2) Standard USB interface (no specialized USB connectors)
3) Drag and Drop (no special sync software required)
4) Expandable memory using standard media (SD/CF)
5) Firmware upgradeable
6) Replaceable/standard batteries
Unfortunately this device doesn't exist, but the Cowon D2 comes pretty close; 5 out of 6 ain't bad. It will be interesting to see what products Cowon comes up with in the future.
I've spent a good deal of time telling you what I like about the D2, now I need to tell you what I don't like about it:
For such a large player, it would be nice to have the ability to create playlists. I have yet to see a truly functional set of playlists work on this player. Sure, you can browse through music by artist, album, genre, folder, etc... But since I have such an eclectic collection of audio, it would be nice to organize it in the way I want.
The included stylus/kickstand is pretty much worthless. Sure, you can navigate with your fingers, but that makes for a smudgy screen. A normal stylus makes this a bit easier, but there's no way to attach it to the device.
On a rating of 10 stars, I'd have to give this 9.5. It's not perfect, but it's as close to it as anything I've ever heard of.
27 of 29 found the following review helpful:
Amazing product Jul 10, 2007
By T. Kunikov
When I got tired of my Creative Zen Vision M freezing up on me I decided to get a flash based player rather than a hard drive one. I'd have to give up a lot of space (going from 30 to 8 in this case, including the SD card) but it was definitely worth it. At first I had to decide between the new iRiver clix 2 and this player, I picked the iRiver and within a week felt like it wasn't living up to what I expected, it was nice but it lacked too much compared to the Cowon D2 (I knew this because my friend has this player). I was disappointed that it was only 4 gigs and not loud enough for me. With the D2 I have 4 gigs and a slot for an SD card, another 4 gigs, so it's double the space. As soon as you install the newest firmware you'll be on your way and ready to listen to music from the SD card as well as the player. The battery life is great, very small and compact, touchscreen works wonderfully, and again the sound is just amazing! And it's even better with the right pair of headphones (in my case I got the Westone UM2's, also on my friends recommendation).
13 of 13 found the following review helpful:
The Best Audiophile PMP For Its Price Jan 02, 2008
By Maclen
After much researching, I purchased the Cowon D2 4gb player. My main requirements were: 1) a player that had terrific sound, 2) a player that had long battery life, 3) a player that played videos well, 4) a player that had expandable memory, and 5) a player that was in the $200-$300 price range. The Cowon D2 excels in all of these categories, and even with an 8gb card (giving me 12gigs of memory), I spent less than $300. I agree completely with those users that find the Apple products easier to use out of the box; moreover, the Cowon does not have the UI (especially the coverflow) of the Itouch. However, despite this, the Cowon is not difficult to learn by just using it, and I consider myself a novice when it comes to electronic devices. (The manual that accompanies the product only gives the basic functions anyway.)
First and foremost, the Cowon D2 sounds amazing. I have compared it to several players (the Apple iPhone, the Archos 605 and the Zune 80gb second generation.) The Cowon simply blows away the competition. I set all of the players to a neutral setting (no eq or special effects on), and played them all through my Sennheiser HD-595 headphones. The Cowon had a better soundstage, better stereo separation, better highs and lows and better detail.
The Cowon gives me over 50 hours of battery life when playing audio files only. If I only play videos, I am able to get about 12-15 hours. These results are much better than the competition.
The Cowon plays videos once you have converted them. (I convert my videos to avi files, and the Cowon does just fine.) You can use the jet audio conversion program that comes with the player or other conversion programs, such as dvdClonemobile. My only criticism here is that the screen is 2.5" measured diagonally, which puts some strain on my eyes if I watch videos longer than an hour. This issue is probably very subjective; it depends in large part on your eyesight. However, having said this, the quality of the videos is excellent (the resoultion is good and the colors are vibrant.)
The ability to expand the memory of the Cowon is a huge plus for me. My Iphone cannot do this, and as memory cards get larger, the Cowon will soon have 20gigs of flash memory. (I should mention that using an external memory card does not adversely affect the player's responsiveness at all.)
The Cowon D2 is a great value in light of the features that come with the player. I actually paid close to $200 for the player, and I notice now that it costs $160.00 on Amazon. (Recently, I saw it as low as $150.00.)
There is simply no player on the market that equals the Cowon D2. I highly recommend its purchase.
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