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| Cowon D2-08BL 8GB Portable Multimedia Player Black | 
 enlarge | Brand: Cowon
Category: CE
List Price: $189.99
Buy New: $174.99
You Save: $15.00 (8%)
New (3) Refurbished (1) from $134.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 2110
Color: Black
Media: Electronics
Batteries Included: Yes
Native Resolution: 360 x 240
Display Size: 2.5
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 3.1 x 2.2 x 0.7
MPN: D2-08BL
Model: D2-08BL
UPC: 826487529106
EAN: 0826487529106
ASIN: B000WH6XZM
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 1-5 of 24 | | NEXT » |
Awesome sound quality, less than stellar firmware August 17, 2008
The three main reasons to get a Cowon D2:
1. Pristine Sound Quality
2. Will play lossless audio files including FLAC and APE
3. Doesn't rely on propitiatory software or file types
I own both a 8Gb D2 and a 16Gb d2 and I love them both.
Sound Quality:
Cowon makes some of the best sounding MP3 players on the market today. They surpass every other brand, including Apple in that department. The D2 is no exception. It produces accurate, high quality sound that when paired with a good pair of ear phones (like Shure SE110s), will impress even the most picky audiophile.
File Support and software:
Unlike the Ipod or Zune, the Cowon D2 does not use proprietary software upload files. It is recognized by Windows (XP and Vista) as a UPnP or Universal Plug and Play Device. It is listed in My Computer as a hard drive, and you can copy files back and forth using windows explorer. You CAN sync it with WMP if you like, but if you prefer to sort music by files instead of tags as I do, this player is the one to choose. Without this becoming an anti DRM, Apple, and Microsoft rant, I enjoy having the ability to upload any file I like to the player at any time I like, in almost any format I like without having to commit to Itunes or WMP or DRM infested files. Buy your digital music from Amazon (no DRM) and play them on the D2! The D2 does come with software called Jet Audio, but I've never used it, so I've left it out of this review.
Another great feature is the ability to expand the internal memory by adding a SD or SDHC card! You can couple a 16Gb D2 with a 16Gb SDHC card like a Transcend 16GB SDHC CARD and have 32Gb of storage! Apple will never do the same thing for their Ipods because they want you to buy a new one each year.
A few complaints:
I can't give the D2 a 5/5 overall. The GUI or graphic user interface leaves something to be desired. While the more recent firmware allows you to upload custom made GUIs, the touch screen can be finicky for someone with larger fingers, and no amount of tinkering with different GUIs will solve that problem. This is the one area where the Ipod beats out the D2.
Another issue is the long string of less than perfect firmware releases from Cowon. While ironing out some kinks, some new ones were created, and although each new firmware release has improved the performance overall, it wasn't until firmware 2.57 that I was satisfied with my D2s performance. If you buy a D2 (any variety, not just the 16gb model) make sure you download and install firmware 2.57 or newer to avoid any problems.
In sum, the D2's pristine sound quality, and its ability to play lossless audio files including FLAC and APE, as well as the more common WMA and MP3 file types elevate it above all competition. There is no other player that gets a 5/5 for audio quality and a 5/5 for variety of file types playable, unless it's another Cowon product. The D2 only gets a 3/5 for GUI and another 3/5 for firmware. I've rounded my score to a 4/5 to reflect those few blemishes.
Finally found a player that covers all of my listening/viewing needs August 17, 2008
Just upgraded from a Creative microphoto and was looking at the Zen, but am very glad I made the switch to Cowon.
PROS:
1) It plays FLAC files. Most of my audio collection is live shows from taper-friendly artists. Now I can play them without converting.
2) Love that I can simply copy folders over using Windows Explorer.
3) The battery life! I was forever charging my Creative...especially when playing non-mp3 files. I didn't even bother bring it on a recent trip to Europe because I knew the battery wouldn't last the airplane ride with layovers. While the D2 still takes more juice when playing non-mp3 files or using the SD card, it still beats other players out there by a long run (no pun intended). This in itself makes it worth the premium price over other players.
4) I think the screen is the perfect compromise of size and viewability. I can now finally watch the dvds I haven't gotten to on the train. Some mention converting/synching issues. I did some research and found a free open-source converter that addresses these issues on the D2 and is very easy to use (google "ilove converter"). Because it converts for quality, it's not the fastest converter (hint: use the Turbo mode) but I just drag the files over and let it run in the background. The dvds I've watched so far look/sound perfect to me.
5) Love the SD card expansion...for a flash player, a must if you have a good size collection. I keep my mp3s of my albums on 2 sd cards and swap the larger files (flac, video) on the flash memory periodically. The other option would've been to get a hard drive player (but I wanted durability)
6) Although I am far from an expert on this, the audio/video sound and look pretty darn good to me.
CONS (most of which don't bother me, but I list them for you to decide:)
1) No gapless playback...as an avid listener of live shows, this is really annoying. The is only thing I am truly not happy with..if it weren't for this, I'd be giving the player 5 stars.
2) Playlists..there is some capability but it didn't look intuitive or extensive, so I didn't bother. I used playlists a lot with my Creative player..mostly to keep my shows together...but with the folder capability, I just put the tracks I want together in the same folder and it does the same thing and I can skip creating playlists altogether. However, I would understand how those who keep the same tracks on different playlists would find this to be a bad thing, so I list it as a con. (I keep my folders by artist with a subfolder for each album/show/compilation for easy browsing).
3) The menu...can be hard to read (mostly a problem until I learned what the options were) and I often have to go through several menus to select what I want. But I've gotten used to it and once I've selected what I want to listen/watch, its all set to go anyway. Maybe there is a way to create shortcuts and I read somewhere there are different skins, but I haven't found it yet.
4) Lack of accessories....was a problem with Creative and even more so with Cowon. Unless you buy a full case, you can't find anything with a belt clip.
6) The manual doesn't go into much detail (even the one downloaded from the Cowon site). Most of what I figured out is on my own. It didn't take too long. Still need to figure out if I can tag my flac files with an artist and show title so they can show up on the artist/album menus with the rest of store bought music. Until then, I have to use the Folder option to select.
OTHER:
Touch screen - no need to use the stylus (thankfully). The first thing I had to do was increase the display time especially while trying to figure out the menus. I never really got used to the tactile feel of the Creative controls either, so I like the touch screen.
Can't comment on the earbuds...just assumed that they were going to be crappy like those that come with any other mp3 player. (Good headpones have a lot of technology and cost money) Picked up a pair of Sennheiser CX300s from Amazon (Sennheiser has a trade-in rebate going on until 9/30 so I traded in the earbuds that came with the Cowon...So they were only $15 shipped after rebate...a sweet deal).
I installed the JetAudio software, opened it (did not make it my default player so my other software still defaults), looked at it for a few minutes and closed it. I just didn't want to spend the time learning another piece of software. Haven't seemed to need it for anything yet.
While I've wanted a Cowon for a long time because of the FLAC capability, I couldn't get myself to pay the premium price. However, I bought a refurbished unit from jetaudio...you get a steep discount bringing the price closer in-line with similar players and since it comes with a 1 year mfg warranty (I checked before ordering), it seems like a pretty safe deal.
JetAudio accidentally shipped the wrong unit the first time, but provided a pre-paid UPS label for the return and shipped the correct product as soon as UPS showed it had been dropped off...didn't make me wait until they received the return. Good customer service (hopefully, I won't need to test it further with the warranty).
SUMMARY
Like any product, you need to figure out what features you need before buying..the Cowon D2 isn't for everyone but for what I was looking for, it was definitely the best product out there for me.
 Good Product With A Couple Of Annoying Quirks August 15, 2008
I wanted a touch screen mp3 player so I thought the Cowon D2 was my best bet. The one thing that sold me on it was the expandable memory. Overall I like it but there are a couple things about that annoy me. One would be creating playlists. I have yet to figure it out. Every mp3 player I've ever owned were easy to make playlists for. The Cowon D2 has left me clueless even though I've researched how to do it online through the Cowon website. The second annoying thing about it is that it won't play some of my wma files. My previous player,the Creative Zen (4G),had no problems. It even played unprotected acc files.
If I can get over these two flaws,I think I'll hold on to it for a while. If not,I'm gonna go back to my Creative Zen.
If it wasn't for their software... August 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Let me say first, I bought this to watch videos while traveling. So the majority of this review is going to focus on the bundled video conversion software and video playback on the D2.
The Cowon D2 Portable Multimedia Player is absolutely, without a doubt, fantastic. It's nice and compact, the device is about the size of a credit card (width & height.) It is a little fat though. It's depth matches the width of a pair of basic fingernail clippers.
The 2.5 Inch screen displays a clear and colorful picture. The sound is crisp, though the headphones that come with the device are very cheap. I replaced the given headphones with a pair of Delta Headphones that I bought for two dollars during a flight, and the sound quality IMPROVED. The touch screen functions just as it should, responding quickly to every touch (there is a locking feature to keep it from responding while you're watching a movie or listening to music.) The MP3 playback has been entirely perfect for me. I've not yet had an issue to speak of.
OK, onto the true downfall of this product, the bundled software. JetAudio VX is absolute, without a doubt, garbage. For every good thing there is about the Cowon D2, there is an equally bad thing about the JetAudio VX software. Everything about JetAudio disappoints me, and that includes the sixteen plus typos in the Dialog boxes.
Now, I'm no novice when it comes to video conversion. I have six or seven different conversion softwares on my computer. I've used everything from Vegas to Nero to Pinnacle to Virtualdub. None of them have given me as much trouble as JetAudio VX has. The very first time I tried to convert a video with JetAudio, I had an error on EVERY SINGLE conversion option save one, WMV 512KB. Frequently, JetAudio has suffered codec errors that I cannot recreate with any other conversion software. I've seen JetAudio produce error after error only to watch Nero convert the video to the same file type without a single issue. It's utterly maddening. JetAudio usually tells you to go to an independent codec site (it gives the address) to download another codec as a solution. However, doing this has NOT fixed a single JetAudio VX conversion error.
I've read of people using other software to convert videos for D2 playback, but none of the conversion software I have seems to be compatible. 320x240 AVI conversions from Pinnacle, Nero, and Virtualdub have all failed to play on the D2. Currently my only option is to convert MPEG into AVI and then into WMV 512 for playback on the D2. I don't know if the $29.99 version of JetAudio comes with these same headaches, but I'm certainly not going to pay $30.00 just to find out.
Also, converting audio files to the MP3 format with JetAudio VX will cost extra. I've not tested the audio conversion at all, as the MP3s I converted with Nero (MP3Pro) have played on the D2 without issue.
Finally, the playback on the D2 is pretty straight on. I can really only compare it to watching a small flat screen television. There's minor pixelation on rare occasions, but it's extremely slight. There is a syncing issue when fastfowarding or rewinding videos on the D2. This, however, isn't really an exclusive problem. Most media players I've used have desynced at least once or twice while skipping through the video.
I love the Cowon D2 Portable Multimedia Player. On the other hand, I hate the required JetAudio VX software. I hate it so much that I almost returned the D2. That really sums it up I guess, if you're looking to watch videos on the D2, you have to decide if the D2's above average playback and everlasting battery (ten hours of video playback) are worth the headache of converting videos with JetAudio. For me, it was.
Almost all good August 4, 2008
Unlike the iaudio U3 I have, this guy does not have the annoying bass artifacts (when a bass note hits, it sounds squeaky) when playing ogg/vorbis files. It sounds great, has a good eq, and has a nice interface for music, though it takes about a day or so to get the hang of it.
The bad? Video support. Don't get me wrong, it works great, if you pre convert the video though. My problem with that is, my old Palm LifeDrive using TCPMP can play any XVid video (OK, no quarterpel or GMC), even with the ogg container and vorbis audio, with no down converting resolution or changing audio codecs (it can handle VBR mp3, while the D2 needs CBR). I guess if you want that kind of playback, get the iaudio A3, or easier yet, get a Windows Mobile PDA/Phone since TCPMP is still available for it, and even though they stopped developing it about 2 years ago, it still works perfect for those videos, and can even play very hi res stuff.
But, the screen on the D2, and especially the 800x480 screen on the iaudio A3 blows them all away, save for a few PMPs.
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