It’s been about a month since the Cowon X9 was announced, and if anyone has actually been holding out for one since then, then today is their lucky day. For $230 the 32GB model can be yours, while the 8GB and 16GB models are notably absent.
To recap, the X9 is a player that’s something along the lines of the old O2 and the hard drive based X7. The 4.3-inch touchscreen dominates the front, but with a resolution of a ridiculously low (these days) 480 x 272 pixels, it would be an insult to other players to call this a video-centric device. That of course begs the question of why someone would use a 4.3-inch device for music, but the X9 does have some neat features in that regard. Tactile buttons, 110 hours of (manufacturer rated) battery life, and microSD support are all nice features to have on an audio player. There’s also the usual “Cowon package” of format support and sound enhancement features, the latter of which is suddenly harder to come by again after it was removed from the JetAudio Android software.
