Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
 OK but not excellent for Audible audio books. June 5, 2009
Trajanrome (Cincinnati)
I bought this specifically to be a portable player for my Audible audio books, and for something that also could play the odd movie. It has a nice feel, and so far (I've had it for three weeks) works as it should, but for Audible books it is far less than desirable. There are two main problems:
1) The sub-menus, when you have items on both the internal and removable memory are amazingly resistant to navigation, and I have owned dozens of similar devices--this is by far the worst offender in this category. Sometimes it simply refuses to switch between internal and card memory, and as a last resort, remove the card memory (turn it off first) and then it will again find the internal memory. It shouldn't be that difficult!
2) It is far too easy to accidentally hit the wrong button and -oops--your book starts over, and it takes a bit to navigate to exactly where you were. In fairness, the device will remember where you last played an audiobook, if, and only if, it executes a proper close. I suggest you use the lock button liberally, and be extremely careful when setting pauses. Always use the bookmark feature, twice as often as you backup your most important documents on your computer.
The unit does have some good points, meriting at least four stars, even for Audible use:
1) Firmware/ Audible activation: The unit came with outdated firmware, which was to be expected--all such units do, and it was easy to download an upgrade. Getting audible manager to recognize the device was more difficult than I had hoped, but actually not too much worse than average--it took five minutes after the firmware update, and I had to threaten the device verbally (not sure that last part helped).
2) Transferring books: Once your COWAN is activated for Audible, you won't need to use Audible Manager, just drop your saved audio books from your audible directly onto your Cowan internal drive or your removable SD card, and they work fine, no conversion needed. In this, the device gets full marks, if only it didn't decide to go back to the start of my audio books so often and lose my place.
3) Videos work very well (except that the device will NOT remember where you were, even with a properly executed close, so ALWAYS bookmark, or you're back to the start), and I do suggest buying the proprietary cord to connect it to a larger screen. You'll need the Cowan Media Center - Jet Audio software (which is FREE at the Cowon website) to convert avi and mpeg files (it even will take Vob files right off your DVD-Rs). This software crunches them at fairly reasonable speed to a lower res avi, which I suggest just dropping into your external card directly rather than letting the software transfer them for you--it's about 10 times as fast, if you have an SD card reader. I wouldn't put it on a giant screen, but if you need a small video player for an airplane or a hotel, it's a darn fine video player for its size, and you're not stuck with having to use a lot of proprietary junk, as with some other vendors.
Suggestion: Buy yourself an SD card to go with it; I started with a 4GB sandisk and it works great.
 Best Player but 4GB is cheaper April 25, 2009
S. Carpaccio (Sydney Australia)
This is the best MP3 and audiobook player, and a whole lot more.
But this 2GB is actually more expensive than the 4GB and nearly the same price as the 8GB so take a look there.
Here is my review of my 16GB:
This is the best audiobook player. I also have an Ipod 80GB Classic and had a Zen Vision M. It leaves both for dead.
- superb sound quality.
- excellent bookmark function- 256 bookmarks. It returns to the bookmark and continues to the follwing tracks (unlike Zen which just stops, as do many other players, and windows mobile players).
- the touch screen is very nifty and the smart menus pop up nicely. Navigation quickly became intuitive.
- the standard folder structure makes loading books and tracks very simple. I am over Itunes and do not miss it.
- 16GB or 8GB or 4GB of internal memory, then an SD slot which means you can have as many SD cards as you want. bookmarks work on the current SD card no worries.
- excellent for music albums.
- the video function works well when I test it, although I am not interested in using it routinely.
If you're looking for the best portable audiobook player, you've found it. But if you just want to listen to audiobooks on your computer get ViddyMP3 for free. Or if you want to tinker get Rockbox free software for various portable players. I think the D2 is great for music too as its sound is clearly superior to Ipod and Zen to even my untrained ear.
It does not do playlists, but really who needs them? I mainly used to use them to work around Itunes bugs.(maybe I like compilation albums, but I can just compile a folder of MP3's any way I like).
Wishlist- on the fly erase & click for more details on the bookmarks (but still the best for bookmarks), playlists (OK already).
Tips- use the stylus supplied for navigating the touch screen.
- when you first ever turn it on, be careful as the first thing you do is set language and I accidentally clicked Korean!! It took a while to return it to English, ha ha.
- If you're not sure just buy the 4GB Black version only $100, and later expand it with an SD card.
Note that Cowon also make the S9 which I have not seen. It is more expensive and uses a different screen technology.
Enjoying this May 18, 2008
stephenghowe (Frederick, MD USA)
I got mine refurbished from JetAudio for $95. At that price, its worth buying. The audio seems to be about as good as it gets for this kind of device, the display is bright and clear (and small). The touch screen interface is prosaic. It is great that it shows up as a usb drive on the desktop and that it supports a wide range of nonstandard codecs. The 50 hour battery life is also great. The form factor is interesting, but not compelling. It's thick, so its the Chunky candy bar of media players. The touch screen, of course, is fragile, and its odd form factor means, no readily available case. At the $150 range, I would probably get something else (with wifi). (If it recorded in stereo, that would justify the current price). Give the thing its due, it may not be as sweetly designed as some Apple stuff, but they have succeeded in creating a reference quality media player.
excellent for both movies and music December 28, 2007
techmannn (New York, NY United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The are really only 2 potential drawbacks to this excellent music and movie player. The player is extremely light and portable but the screen you are looking at is 2.5 inches. That's pretty small, so be sure you dont mind a screen that size fir video. The only other possible drawback is that viewing movies and TV shows means first converting them with the software provided with the player. If your computer doesnt have the proper codecs already installed, the conversion will fail. for techies who know about codecs this isnt a drawback at all, but for others it might prove frustrating to try to get video files to play on this device. If you are like me and download lots of videos that others have made, you need lots of different codecs and versions of each codec. So I can honestly say I have given this player a good test of its ability to convert and then play a variey of different video source files. This is easily the best portable multimedia player currently in the marketplace of this size. Perfect for commuters who might want to watch a movie rather than listen to music. The touch screen interface is simple and straightforward and the display is very bright. You might have trouble viewing in direct sunlight but that is true with any LCD display on the planet. There are plenty of professional internet reviews out there if you google around and it has been getting high marks just about everywhere. If you download and watch a lot of movies and TV, this device is quite impressive. It doesnt hurt that you can insert standard SD memory cards to increase its storage capacity.
Best personal music player yet August 27, 2007
Edward L. Torgerson (Aptos, CA)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I've had 4 music players, including an iPod and Rio Carbon. This one is the best by far. Unquestionably the most powerful and accurate amplifer I've ever heard on a personal music player. If you are an audiophile this is the one for you. Tons of other features too, but music is the best.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
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