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"Totally amazing player.. Hats-off to Cowon!!" on by g_harikrishnan
Pros: Sexy looks, small ultra-compact, Beautiful and crisp screen, Touch screen is truly awesome, Audio and video are equally mind blowing, Terrific Battery life.
Cons: Starter guide and Manual too short and insufficient.
Summary: After a long wait and research, i finaly got this player (through Jetmall). When this, arrived i couldnt wait to get my hands on this sexy gadget to check it out.
Let me tell you why i like this piece of electronic piece of magnificence. Firstly its form factor, its sleek compact and eye catching. It has anawesome 2.5 inch screen which would catch anybody's attraction.. The screen is a touch sensor screen. Cowon has supplied a Stylus which can be used for navigation and also can be used as a kick-stand. Thats pretty inovative and thoughtful of cowon. The interface is very simple and easy to use. The touch screen responds fast and smoothly and shows very good response.
Speaking about the main part of this player - The Audio. The audio output is excellent with Jet Effect (BBE, Mech Bass, Customizable equalizer and preselects, 3D Surround) and all these can be tweaked to our desired level. The bass is excellent and the mid and low tones are clear. The music sounds great with the supplied headphones (cowon headphones are pretty good when compared to the ones that come with the ipod), but i cant wait to feast my ears by using a V-Moda or sennheiser headphone. The option of lyrics display is there in the player.
The Video playback is lovely, very smooth very vivid and crystal clear. I have seen the video in the iRiver Clix. When compared i liked the video quality of the D2.
You can even view pictures and store the EXIF information of your photos.
The FM Radio and the recording worked very fine with me. Picking the stations was pretty simple whereas i found it tiresome with the Creative Zen Vision M. The recording also was terrific.
I had absolutely no problem loading songs into the player. The Jet Shell software that comes with it is very easy to use and makes loading songs into the player very simple. You can just drag and drop the songs unlike itunes stuff, where you gotta load the songs to the itunes, set up playlists, sort them and then finally load it.. Cowon makes life much more easier.
The only problem is that the supplied manual or starter guide is very limited. It just has 3-4 pages to explain everything. Well not everything ofcourse, it just talks about the parts and the process of charging and putting in the SD card. The nagivation and GUI instructions are missing. But its really fun to play around with this device and explore it.
Hence i highly recommend this to anybody who likes it compact, sexy and pure music and for those ppl who really love video and photo on the go. You can definitely go for it and i promise you wont be disappointed. -
"Great player, fun to use, excellent screen and sound quality." on by stuffuser
Pros: Sound quality is probably the best I've heard. I am using Sony earbuds not using the included ones. Video playback is smooth and very good screen. Many features. Voice and Line-In recording.
Cons: Included instruction manual very short. No external speaker. Only 2GB internal memory.
Summary: This player is great for me. I wanted something small, that was versatile. I am not a huge music person, my entire collection is only 2.4GB and that's been building for 10 years, so the small internal memory wasn't as big a deal for me. You can pop in a 2GB SD card and when playing shuffle, the player acts like it has 4GB total without having to specify going to the SD card. I use the voice recording for my photolog for class, great to quickly record what my camera settings were for each shot (film - stuff like f-stop and shutter speed). Radio works well for me, though this feature I'll probably use the least. Video playback is excellent. I plan on loading up a 2GB SD card with some movies for travel. Image viewer is a nice addition, pictures came up quickly. I found the interface very easy to understand. It's intuitive, but there might be a few things that take getting used to especially if you are coming off another player. This thing is built rock-solid too. Feels like I could drop it all the time and it'd be fine. I don't want to test that theory of course. I am a guy, but have fairly small hands, maybe average to just smaller than average. The touch screen works very well for me, but there are a few things that are a combo of touchscreen and interface. Some icons must be double-touched whereas most are just a single touch. I have difficulties with the double touch stuff. Weight is good, not too like that if feels like it's flimsy, not heavy to where it'd get heavy. I like the kickstand that's included. I didn't use it as a touchscreen item, since my fingers do fine. One last thing is support. Cowon (iAudio, JetAudio) has great support and a fairly consistent firmware update schedule. My player came loaded with firmware version 2.00, there is a 2.20 version out there. I have not tried the newest version yet. This player supports a number of formats, both audio and video, which for some is great. I usually pick a format and stick with it, so wasn't a big deal, but I like the fact that I can pick a format. I recommend this for anyone like me, who wants a device that does many things, but isn't too concerned with capacity. IIRC, max official SD card size is 4GB. If there is a 4GB SD card, it should be HCSD and may not work with this player. Though, I have read many reports of people getting various brands of 4GB cards working.
Updated
Cowon is great at updating their Firmware. The latest firmware (3.40b as of this writing) adds a great deal of features.
First is ID3 tag support and browsing. I can search my music using Artist, song, Album, play-lists, etc.
Next, adds some additional touchscreen features, for scrolling and browsing that help. Drag finger left or right to go forward or back a folder/level. Drag finger up or down to scroll the list. Dragging only half the screen, scrolls 5 items, dragging the whole screen scrolls 10 items.
Added a Dictionary feature, that really I don't think is useful, but shows the potential of the player. i.e. has a little on-screen keyboard, or a drawing pad where the user input letters like a PDA. Could be useful for searching music in the future.
Finally, adds support for SDHC cards, which if it's fully functional means, cards up to 32GB in size eventually.
For those worried about touchscreen vs. having tactile buttons, I have found that I can skip, play and pause without really looking, because the on-screen buttons are well placed. -
"Disappointed!" on by cris_core
Pros: Great display, cool touch screen interface, nice size and look, SD card support, Great video playback, Good software included, Great sound and sound options, custom wall paper. AC power adapter incld
Cons: Currently no Subscription music service support! Line in support requires adapter that is not included and is not currently available. No case or lanyard included. Cowon tech support disappointing.
Summary: I had high hopes for this player as it had all the features that I wanted. But it’s missing important details! How could Cowon release a player this expensive without subscription WMA support?! After a long battle with Cowon tech support I found out that the D2 is supposed to have a firmware update soon that will support subscription services. It was a battle because the D2 that the tech support person had was able to do it. He didn’t know that the release version could not. I had to contact them twice (via chat) and spend a good deal of time before the support person would believe me when I said it didn’t work. The D2 itself is a solid and well-designed piece of hardware, however, it seems they rushed everything else. I also feel deceived because line in is listed as a feature, but nowhere do I see any disclaimer that you need an adapter to access it, or that the adapter is not available now.
Even so, I think I will keep the player in the hopes that the issues will be resolved soon. -
"Dont beleive negative bias. This is the best player ive ever had." on by triscope
Pros: Excellent video quality, excellent sound and customizability, excellent touch screen response
Cons: -NONE! after updating to 2.45b firmware
Summary: Note: review based on upgraded firmware 2.45b
This has got to be the best mp3 player packed with somany features on the market. For the price I paid, i could have paid 20$ more for a nano which doesnt even compare.
This little thing is in its own universe. It has everything you could ever ask for.
First off the sound quality the d2 outputs is simply amazing due to its entire customizable 5 band equalizer (with option to change each bands frequency), 10 presets to save, and a pletorah of other sound enhancements. Combine that with high grade noise cancelling headphones like Shure e2c and you are in audio heaven. The bundled earbud iaudio ear phones arent that bad, but if you wana get the most out of it, invest in some higher grade stuff.
Next Video quality. Soon after buying this thing, i spent as much time encoding and copying my favority shows and movies on it, because the video quality is crystal clear, very fast at 30fps unlike other 15fps players out there. Jet audio lets you convert to the quality and size of your liking.
Fm radio. quick scan will sweep through all frequencies and set channels that are clear, or you can manually tune the dial. Recording from the fm tuner is flawless and the mic is very clear. Maybe a bit too much on the high frequencies, but you can change the bitrate at which you record at.
Picture viewer is alright, lets you zoom rotate , but best of all it lets you set a custom wallpaper background.
Notepad feature is pretty cool, you can take notes or make silly drawings when you're bored but other than that it may be a useless feature for some but cool nonetheless.
in conclusion this player has everything and then some as a music/media player. I can find very few things wrong with this unit and I hope this company becomes a bit more popular in the publics eye after having delivered such a fantastic product. -
"Best player on the market. No questions asked" on by musictechgod
Pros: Everything, it does exactly what it is supposed to
Cons: None really. Maybe doesnt play Hi Def?
Summary: Read the D2 4 gig review. Same player. Some how we have people here who reviewed the D2 poorly its pretty obvious they have other objectives then giving an honest review
Cowon D2 user reviews (2GB, black)
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