Cowon D2 (2GB, black)

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Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 8 reviews Back to product review
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1 out of 1 people found this review helpful

4.0 stars

"Great player, fun to use, excellent screen and sound quality."

by stuffuser on February 21, 2007

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.

Thank you for submitting your feedback!

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2 replies to this review

reply by: hunterdave on April 29, 2007

I was wondering where you bought this player and for how much? I am having trouble finding one.

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reply by: cris_core on March 3, 2007

Hey, where did you find that new firmware update?? I have been looking for a firmware that supports subscription services.

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Cowon D2 (2GB, black)

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