Archive for Cowon

Cowon Z2 might finally reach Western shores

There’s been quite some uncertainty and doubt regarding the international release date of the Plenue Z2, the successor to the D3, and Cowon’s second experiment with Google’s Android operating system. We’ve ranted about it as early as January.

This time it sure took Cowon a lot longer than usually to release a device outside of Korea, but it seems they’re almost there. According to Engadget, an “early May” release date should be possible. Apparently, the 16GB version of the Z2 will only come in white and will go for around $280, the 32GB version will only come in black and go for a slightly painful $320.

Those prices are quite a bit higher than, say, same-sized iPod Touch variants, and a lot more expensive than Samsung’s various Galaxy Players. But if you want BBE sound enhancements, many more tactile buttons than average Android devices offer, and a shnazzy S-AMOLED screen (hopefully a non-Pentile one), then you really don’t have a lot of alternatives. At least the Z2 should be snappy enough to be usable as an all-around Android device, contrary to its severely slow and laggy ancestor, the D3.

[via Engadget - thanks to Nathan for the tip]

Got root? The Cowon Z2 already does.

As usual with Android devices, it was only a matter of time until someone gained root access to the Cowon Z2. This time however it happened before the Z2 actually hit the market outside of Korea.

iAudiophile forum member Gungr spent some hours figuring out how to open up the Z2, so you don’t have to. So far it’s a bit of a lengthy procedure, involving setting up the Java and Android SDKs, editing info files, and some more in-depth wizardry. I’m sure a neatly packed, easy to install, rooted ROM update will follow shortly.

I don’t think I have to count the advantages of having root access on an Android device: official Android market access, ad blocking, backing up or deleting superfluous system apps, over/underclocking the CPU, and so on.

So, if you’re the lucky owner of an imported Z2, run, don’t walk over to iAudiophile and check out the instructions on how to make the most of your Z2.

[iAudiophile Cowon Z2 root access hack by Gungr]

Cowon released the D3… no wait, this time it’s called the Z2

About a year after their first foray into Android fields, Cowon released the Z2 Plenue in Korea – indirectly admitting the earlier D3 being a beta product… one that customers paid dear money for.

The Z2 is basically the exact same product as the D3 with a few hardware flaws ironed out. The Z2′s 1GHz Telechips Cortex-A8 processor isn’t quite as outdated as the D3′s 750Mhz ARM11 (although it’s still far from what’s usually built into Android devices nowadays), and it has 512MB Ram, which is quite a bit more useful than the D3′s paltry 170MB (usually 60MB free). Gone is also Cowon’s proprietary 32-pin port – the Z2 sports standard MicroUSB and MicroHDMI ports. While this is generally a great update, it might however mean the Z2 doesn’t do S/PDIF-out anymore, as found on the D3′s proprietary port.

The Z2′s screen is a 3.7″ 800 x 480 AMOLED one, just like the D3′s – let’s hope Cowon used one with a real RGB subpixel matrix this time, not an inferior Pentile one. I also hope they got hardware-accelerated video contrast ratio right this time – I’m still hoping for a fix for this glaring bug in the D3… Still available on the Z2 is one of the D3′s best features over almost all other Android devices out there – plenty of tactile buttons, making usability on the go quite a lot easier than touchscreen-only controls. Battery life on the Z2 still isn’t great – 22 hours for music, 8-9 hours for video. Let’s hope those synthetic benchmark numbers are somewhat close to real-life performance.

Continue reading…

R7: Cowon, what were you thinking?

Cowon Korea just announced the R7, a “Full HD Super PMP”, which is more of a 7″ tablet without connectivity. At 800×480 pixel it sports quite low resolution for that screen size, but – as far as I can interpret the Korean specs sheet – it should have excellent battery life: 65 hours for audio, 10 for video. As is usually the case with Cowon, the R7 supports every audio and video format known to man (including MKV, TS, 3GP, APE, Musepack, Wavpack, True Audio), and of course 1080p playback as well. Judging by the specs, it seems this one doesn’t support BBE sound enhancements for videos, only for audio – like the V5 and O2 before it. It comes in respectable sizes up to 64GB, sports a MicroSDHC slot, and an HDMI output.

Here’s the real zinger, however: it runs on Windows CE 6.0. This is not a joke. While the rest of the planet strives to implement WP 7 Mango (as far as Microsoft’s mobile OS goes), Android, or iOS, Cowon took a step back to the good old days of CE 6, as already found in their rather underwhelming V5 PMP of last year. Actually, the R7 is just a V5 with a bigger screen (at the same resolution).

It is even more bewildering, considering Cowon already have an Android device on the market with the D3, offering a more modern,  more widely used, and arguably better operating system than on the R7. I definitely would have expected them to release an Android tablet, not a WinCE one. Then again, the R7 has no Wi-Fi connectivity, so it might not matter after all. Either way, consider me once again baffled about Cowon’s decisions. Once again it seems like the advancements in portable device design seen in the last few years went past Cowon.

[Cowon Korea product page via iAudiophile]

Subscribe to the CrowdGadgets newsletter and win a Cowon i10

As already promised earlier, Anythingbutipod is giving away a shiny, fresh, award winning Cowon iAudio 10. To win the i10, the only thing you need to do is to subscribe to the CrowdGadgets newsletter. The contest is open to anyone worldwide, not just US residents. The winner will be announced in the newsletter on November 21st. Good luck!

A big thank you to Cowon Korea for donating the prize. Read on for the design awards the i10 won so far. Continue reading…

ASUCI v2 shows the J3/S9/X7 from a new angle

(Warning: If you’re not immune to ear-hemorrhage-inducing pop music, you better turn down the volume on your speakers/headphones before starting the video.)

The Cowon J3 is far from being abandoned by the user interface modding community (and the S9 and X7 benefit from being compatible). Well known Korean UCI designer Asurada presents a teaser video of his newest creation, ASUCI v2.

Using 45 degree tilted interface elements would usually be just a gimmick, but Asurada obviously put a lot of thought into the design and usability of his theme. Next to ergonomic left-handed usage I especially like the increased length of the slider bar, allowing for more precise scrolling in a track. It seems to hit a quite sweet middle ground between a portrait- and a landscape-oriented interface.

[ASUCI v2 official site (Korean) via iAudiophile]

Cowon D3 Plenue Review

Many reviews have already been written about the Cowon D3. Mine’s certainly late to the party, but for good reason: after seeing the somewhat underwhelming performance of the D3 with its initial Android 2.1 firmware, I told myself to wait until the release of the inevitable 2.3 upgrade before I give the D3 a closer look.

Now that yummy ‘Gingerbread’ has arrived on Cowon’s first foray into the smartphone-without-a-phone realms, there’s no more holding back. Continue reading…

This time for real: The Cowon i10 is out

While last week’s iAudio 10 teaser left a lot – or rather, everything – to the imagination, we now get a closer look at the real product.

Design-wise, the i10 borrows the curved back plate of the S9 and some cues from the C2‘s appearance as well. Specs-wise, there are no real surprises to be found in the i9′s successor. As expected, it still uses a touch control interface nobody seems to like, it still has no SD slot unlike most other new Cowon players. On the positive side, this time Cowon was daring enough to release a 32GB model, so the internal storage capacity should be fine for most people’s needs. Contrary to the i9′s 240×320 4:3 screen, the i10 sports a 3″ 240×400 widescreen display (TFT, not AMOLED). While still being a rather slim looking player, the battery life on the i10 seems much improved over the i9 – a theoretical 38 hours for audio and 6.5 hours for video.

The ‘Color Therapy’ user interface is, as expected, just a superficial gimmick. However, it seems – contrary to the C2′s tedious ‘Daily Life’ UI – that the ‘Color Therapy’ stuff might not get in the way of usability and actually lets one tweak the main interface colors to one’s liking.

All the usual features one expects from a Cowon are there as well – BBE sound enhancements, dozens of supported audio codecs, AVI/WMV (and possibly MP4) video support, FM radio, voice recorder, built-in speaker, analog TV-out, line/mic-in, image viewer, text file viewer, and so on. The Korean version also comes with a T-DMB tuner, which won’t be of much use in other countries.

Cowon iAudio 10 product page (in Korean).

Cowon iAudio 10 cryptically announced/teased

Your guess is as good as mine as to what Cowon is trying to convey with the iAudio 10 teaser website. It plays Korean pop music in various degrees of cheesiness, smacks some random English words in your face, shows off some hip and beautiful people, and lets you adjust the site background and spot colors.

To me it seems Cowon is following up here on their C2‘s “Daily Life” user interface – which basically is a nag-screen/screensaver that gets in the way of the real user interface. Well, let’s wait and see how the new i10′s “Therapy Music” interface turns out to change the life of narrow-minded Europeans like me.

The i6 was a tiny, chubby 0.85″ HDD player, the i7 was the same with flash memory, the i8 existed only in my imagination, and the i9 is the slimmest Cowon player to date. What those players have in common is a diagonal touch-strip control system, paired with some tactile buttons. Place your bets on what the i10 is going to look like, and if you truly need “Therapy Music” or not after it has been unveiled for good.

Thanks to Lebellium for the tip.

Cowon C2 Review

One thing’s for sure: never bet on what name/number Cowon is coming up for consecutive players in a series, you will most definitely be guessing wrong.

The D2/D2+ was a very popular player for its time, some four years ago, and many people craved for a more modern successor ever since it was released. Recently, when the D3 was announced, there were quite some outcries to be heard since it was a large Android phone-without-a-phone, with nary a resemblance to the D2 at all.

Enter the newly released C2. As I said, do not try to make sense of Cowon’s naming schemes – the C2 is ‘the real D3’, so to speak. It actually is still more of a D2 than anything else – basically the same hardware, the same form factor, the same screen, more or less the same functionality as its four year old ancestor. The most obvious differences are in the looks of the user interface, the move from a full-sized SD slot to MicroSD, the use of a power/hold button instead of a slider, and the addition of a speaker on the back.

Does that mean Cowon’s decision to move this revamped D2 one letter down the alphabet is a step back? Not necessarily, there are certainly some features to be found in the C2’s firmware that are fit for a 2011 player. Read on for the full review.  Continue reading…