COWON J3 32 GB Portable Media Player (Black) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)My Creative Zen:M was getting old, and I had already replaced the battery once so doing it twice was too much for me so I decided to upgrade. That's where the Cowon J3 came in, after doing my research I decided to take a chance on a brand I'd never heard of before.PROS:
- Touchscreen is fast and accurate to the touch
- Beautiful AMOLED screen even when the brightness is toned down
- Plays AAC,MP3,FLAC,WAV,etc etc etc
- Video looks great and is smooth
- Plenty of options for video
- Plenty of options for music
- Recording, speaker, and mic are surprisingly decent
- Jet Effects 3.0 has tons of EQ presets and 4 customizable user options
- Alarm and Radio work great, you get tons of stations
- 3 ways to view everything on your screen, you can switch between them instantly
- Lock option on the side makes it easy to not accidentally turn on the player while it's in your pocket
- Play and volume buttons on other side of also make it practical when you don't want to turn on the player to change tracks
- Sound is amazing, especially with the BBE+ options as mentioned before
- Battery life is great so far, I get tons of hours before a quarter of the battery is even used
- Switches from horizontal to vertical back and forth with ease
- MicroSD slot
- Screen is very durable, it's gorilla glass just like the Cowon S9.
- Did i mentions there's tons of options for the user on this? well there's a ton, it does not disappoint in this reagardCONS:
- Album art does not show up when you change to horizontal view*
- screen is very prone to finger prints as well as back of player, essentially the whole thing
- when you're listening to the radio and want to change the dial up(numbers ascending) you have to press the back button instead of the forward**can be corrected with a nice firmware update.
One thing I do recommend is that you don't purchase this directly from jetmall. Well, that's unless you like multiple charges on your credit/debit card. Amazon is the best way to go, as usually is the case. Overall this product deserves the praise it's been recently getting, just for the sound alone. It's so easy to use the design is simply great. If you want the white version of this though, you're not going to find it on Amazon yet, but it looks just as great from what I can tell and I expect Amazon to make it available soon. About the only thing I could find wrong was how easy it is to smudge the screen, but that's expected with any touchscreen, I'd recommend an anti-glare screen for this problem. Any other problems can be corrected with a firmware update. I have the 2.21 version right now, but I'm sure more are in the works as is per usual with these things. I recommend this product to any music fan, good luck on your search though, it never hurts to keep looking although I'm personally sticking with this one.
EDIT:
JUST DOWNLOADED FIRMWARE UPDATE 2.2 AND THE ALBUM COVERS ARE NOW VIEWABLE THROUGH LANDSCAPE MODE(HORIZONTAL).

Click Here to see more reviews about: COWON J3 32 GB Portable Media Player (Black)


This sleek media player from Cowon boasts a brilliant 3.3-inch touchscreen, playback of a serious list of a serious list of video and audio formats, FM radio and voice recording (or even line-in recording), and 32GB of space for all your favorite media. Not enough? Pop in an SD card for a little extra.

Just Plain Slick Too many media players forget about what's on the outside. The J3 is just 9.9mm thick and features a brushed metallic bezel that's ultra-stylish, and downright attractive.

3.3-Inch AMOLED Display The J3 boasts a 16 million color, 3.3-inch AMOLED display with a 480 x 272 pixel resolution. Thanks to the low-power display technology, the screen is viewable from virtually any angle. It looks great in the dark and even in direct sunlight. AMOLED turns electric signals into video 1,000 times faster than the speed of conventional LCDs, leaving no ghost images while playing video.

Intuitive Touchscreen Interface The COWON J3 boasts super-intuitive touch controls, with gesture recognition features like zoom-able album art, pictures, and text; TrueType fonts for clear visibility at any zoom level; and more. Get where you need fast directly from the durable anti-scratch touchscreen.

Video Playback The J3 plays AVI, WMV, and ASF video files, with codec support for DivX 3/4/5, Xvid SP/ASP, and WMV 7/8/9. That means less conversion on your end. Enjoy all your favorite clips and shows, and just tilt the unit to switch to 16:9 widescreen viewing.

Grab the optional video out composite cable, and you can send your signal to a television for some full-size viewing.

Enjoy Your Music The J3 is a full-featured music player, and it's definitely one for the afficionados. With support for MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC, WAV, and APE formats, you can play back most any file. Get detailed track info on the J3's screen with meta tag support, and view LDB 1.0 and 2.0 lyrics files while you listen.

JetEffect Music Enhancement Dial in the perfect sound no matter what you're listening to with Cowon's various sound enhancement tools:

BBE: Refines sound quality
Mach3Bass: Provides deeper, tighter low-end
MP Enhance: Sonic restoration for compressed music formats
3D Surround: Provides 3D sound effect
5-Band EQ: Customizeable equalizer with adjustable band and bandwidth filter

FM Radio and Recorder Enjoy your favorite FM Radio programming using the J3's unique "jog shuttle" touchscreen control for selecting stations. Store your favorites in up to 39 user presets, and record live radio for later listening.

Photo and Document Viewer View or share slideshows of your favorite JPG images, and read your TXT text documents wherever you are.

Bluetooth Freedom The J3 features built-in Bluetooth 2.0 support (A2DP, AVRCP Profile) for use with various wireless devices. Get rid of those cables and enjoy the benefits.

Digital Clock With Alarm Set an alarm to play your music or FM radio, and use the sleep timer to drift off to your favorite songs. You can also use the clock to schedule FM recording for a particular time.

Voice Recording Record voice memos, lectures, meetings or whatever else you need for later using the built-in microphone. The J3 also supports line-in recording, for grabbing audio from external devices like CD players.

Energy Efficient Entertainment The J3 will give you a whopping 64 hours of music playback, and up to 11 hours of video playback, a single charge of its lithium-polymer battery.

Flash Player The pre-installed Adobe Flash Player lets you enjoy Flash games and other utilities, along with the Flash content present on many web sites.

What's in the Box
Cowon J3 32 GB (Black), Earphones, USB 2.0 Cable, Quick Start Guide, Manual CD

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Cowon D2 - 16 GB Portable Multimedia Player (Black) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)(Initial Disclaimer: I am a big fan of most Cowon products.)
The D2 is a great A/V player, but I honestly have to say that I can't recommend it to everyone. If you want a flawless GUI, up-to-the-minute firmware, extensive playlist capabilities, compatibility with AAC files, bluetooth connectivity, superior FM radio performance, high-quality stock earphones, and name-recognition, then it is probably not for you. These are all D2 weaknesses.
Fortunately, most of these don't mean much to me. I don't really even care that much for the video capabilities (though they are pretty good for the size of the unit.) I want true drag-and-drop capability for media files, multiple playback formats (including FLAC and OGG,) superior battery life (EVERYONE admits that Cowon owns this one,) high power output at the phones jack, and superior (not necessarily audiophile) sound quality. The D2 has all of this.
I traded up to the 16GB D2 from a 8GB i7 and I must admit that I miss a couple things about the i7. For one thing, the touchscreen is annoying. (Don't misunderstand me...the touchscreen on the D2 works fine. It's just that ALL touchscreens are annoying to me. Would you prefer to use a mouse on your desktop, or to reach up and use a touchscreen monitor? A touchscreen is wasteful of motion, often difficult to use when your finger blocks your view of the screen, and ends up providing you with a nice fingerprint-filled display. Fortunately, the D2 display shows prints only at certain angles and is very easy to clean.) I also like the size and shape of the i7, which, being built like a little brick, has no wide surfaces to stress and no large display to protect. The D2, on the other hand, has a lovely (fairly-large) display and several firmware features missing from the i7. Both models are available in 16GB versions, with the i7 being slightly less expensive than the D2.
The sound quality of the D2 is very comparable to that of the i7, though I would probably give the D2 a slight edge in transparency. The output is more than enough to drive most earbuds, earphones, and low-impedance headphones, but you will definitely need a high-quality headphone amp if you use less-efficient headphones with this unit. My Sony MDRSA3000s and Ultrasone HFI-700DVDs definitely need the help, but my Grados and Ultimate Ears IEMs sound fantastic without the amp.
Frankly, I was looking at both the the D2 and the 16 GB Sony NWZ-A729BLK. The Sony is probably at least as good as the D2 in terms of sound quality and slightly better in its GUI, but the Sony is $60 more than the D2, doesn't have the EQ features of the D2, and won't play FLAC or OGG audio files. (Most of my audio files are encoded with OGG as I find that OGG files usually sound just as good as MP3 files, but with a 20% reduction in size.)
I haven't yet had a chance to check the battery life of the D2, but if it is anything like the battery life of the i7, it will be nothing less than astounding. My i7 will run for more than 35 hours, playing audio continuously.
One last comment...see the cute little pick-shaped stylus that comes with the unit? Do yourself a favor and just leave it in the package. Unlike most PDAs, the stylus does not fit into any sort of slot or recess in the D2. You're supposed to hang it by its little cord around the carrying strap (or somewhere.) Very irritating. It also functions as a little rest that allows you to lean the D2 at two different viewing angles on a desktop or table. The D2 is very unstable when you do this. If I were you, I'd just forget about the using the stylus altogether and use the back of my nail to select items on the screen.
So, there you go. I won't tell you that the D2 is the best thing since canned beer, but it does the things that I want extremely well. If I hadn't wanted to upgrade from 8GB to 16GB, I probably would have stuck with my i7, but the D2 made a lot of sense when I started looking at the avilable flash players.
UPDATE 3/2/2009: A couple more comments after more months of experience. I've seen several comments about database corruption here and I've got to say that I'm puzzled. The D2 builds a database when you turn it on (which causes a delay that some might consider annoying) but I've NEVER had to fool around doing some of the things other reviewers have described (reformatting SD cards, deleting files from the system folder, etc.) It reads MP3 tags just fine and without a hitch. I've used many tools to edit my MP3 tags (including my favorite, MediaMonkey) and they've all worked great.
You definitely want to remember not to change the SD card unless you turn the unit off. It won't hurt anything (I don't think) but the D2 needs to scan the new card to determine what media files are on it and it does this when you turn it on. Just don't plan on popping 1GB SD cards in and out to find your favorite songs. I keep things pretty simple...I keep audio files on the D2 internal memory and then use the SD cards for movies. I find that I can keep 15-20 movies on a single 8GB card. (I'm currently using Gordian Knot to convert the videos and it works fine.)
Battery life continues to be phenomenal. I have only dropped to a single battery segment on the indicator once or twice.
I use a rubber (silicone?) skin and a screen protector, rather than an actual case. Works great and I have zero scratches on the screen or unit. Unlike some other players, the D2 will use basically any mini-USB cable or charger to connect. I normally charge it on trips using my Motorola Razr charger.
I've done two firmware upgrades since I bought the D2 and neither one erased my media files from the unit. I'm not suggesting you take a chance, but my files survived just fine.
You can get an adapter which allows you feed the composite video and analog audio to a TV and/or stereo system. You would be shocked by the picture and sound quality you can get doing this. A lot of my movies are converted to 480p image, which is more than adequate for a standard (non-HDTV) TV set. This is really cool when you're on vacation.
While my fingertips work fine on the UI, flipping your finger over and using a fingernail is more practical. I also use a standard pen (not the writing tip) even if it's made of metal. The screen protector keeps you from scratching the screen at any normal pressure. The little stylus they give you continues to be virtually worthless, though I'll admit that there have been times I would have liked to have used it as a stand for the D2 while I was on a plane. Holding it in your hand can cause a bit of a cramp.
My SDHC cards work fine in the D2, though I've only tried 8GB and smaller cards. I don't see any difference in the speed with which the D2 accesses the files, regardless of what type or size SD media I use.
The biggest gripe remains the lack of a playlist feature. I just don't understand why Cowon is so hardheaded about this. You don't have true playlists on newer Cowon units, either.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Cowon D2 - 16 GB Portable Multimedia Player (Black)

Take your media everywhere with the versatile Cowon D2-16BL 16 GB Portable Media Player. Features include a 2.5-inch LCD touchscreen, wide video and audio file format support, audio recording via internal microphone or line-in jack, FM radio, clock/alarm, TV output, and more--all in an ultra-portable package.
Compact Size. Jumbo View. The D2's touch-sensitive, 16-million color 24-bit 2.5-inch LCD screen maximizes your viewing experience. Enjoy finer details and richer colors from your movies and images. Also, sharing memories with your loved ones has never been easier. Watch it, read it, and view it on your big screen TV or high-resolution monitor using the TV output.
Touch screen interface. Use the D2's stylus touchpen for navigating your player's contents. It also doubles as a kickstand for extended viewing. The "Virtual Click" overlay navigation function lets you enjoy the convenience of navigating through the other contents in your player while watching video. Detailed information, such as file size, pixel, and format, can be viewed while browsing through files. The direct searching feature allows you to move instantly to the position you've clicked on from the progress bar while you're playing music or movies.
Format Freedom Don't limit yourself. In addition to 320 x 240 30fps (frames per second) QVGA videos, the D2 will play MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC, APE, and WAV file formats. ID3 support lets you browse your files by artists, genres, and albums. Use the screen to view lyrics while listening to your favorite tunes. Enhance your experience with customizable EQ, bass boost, and stereo effects. The MP Enhance feature compensates for sound quality lost in compression. Cowon's JetAudio VX software is used to create high-compression files for quality playback on Cowon D2, and use Jetshell to play and manage your multimedia library
Plenty of Room In addition to the on-board 16 GB of storage, the D2 supports SD, MMC, and MMC-plus flash memory via the built-in SD card slot, so you'll never run out of memory. Transfer files freely from/to other digital devices, such as digital camera, PDA, and more.
Hours of Power The D2's rechargeable battery provides up to 10 hours of video, and up to 52 hours of music on a single charge. Wherever you go, free yourself from worrying about interruption of your music. The D2 can be charged via USB cable or standard wall adapter.
Recording Features The built-in microphone optimized for voice recording can be used to easily record meetings and lectures. Line-in recording capability allows recording of sound output from CDP, MD, TV, and other playback devices. Use the clock to schedule recording of FM radio.
Tools of the Trade Cowon's JetAudio VX software is used to create high-compression files for quality playback on Cowon D2. Jetshell is capable of playing and managing of various multimedia allowing seamless integration of multimedia library.
Take Your Data, Too Cowon D2 is automatically recognized as a removable disk when you connect it to your PC via the USB cable. USB 2.0 supports transmission of maximum 40 Mbps speed.
What's in the Box Cowon D2-16BL 16 GB Portable Multimedia Player (Black), stylus, earphones, USB cable, AC adapter, QuickGuide, installation CD.

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COWON J3 16 GB Portable Media Player (Black) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I owned the cowon x5L for nearly 4 years and was waiting for it to break OR for Cowon to
release a worthy player before I considered replacing it. While the S9 left me unimpressed
the new J3 is a superbly refined and well balanced player. Its size, build quality and, most importantly,
its UI are all testament to the development DAPs have undergone in the past 5 years.
The new Jet Effect 3.0 settings are great and provide alot more tweaks than the older versions.
Its screen and ease of use for photos are also big improvements.
The only two things I found a little problematic are inserting the microsd card...you need to really
push it in hard and this cannot be done with a finger unless you have a long nail, which i don't.
Also, I find the screen requires a little cleaning every day..but I think this is the norm for
touch screens these days and it really is not such a problem considering the plethora of benefits
it provides.
Sound Quality is superb, esp with jeteffect 3.0 turned on...and my flac files sound warm and full.
Compared to the x5 I feel i need to listen 5 higher on volume but still with 40 the max, there is
room to spare for that bit extra if you want to plug it into an amp.
Also, I must say that the Cowon software is a great asset for ripping cds as it is fast and
gives many more codec options than other programs.
All in all, thank you Cowon for this new player and for the key of balance and good design!


Click Here to see more reviews about: COWON J3 16 GB Portable Media Player (Black)


This sleek media player from Cowon boasts a brilliant 3.3-inch touchscreen, playback of a serious list of a serious list of video and audio formats, FM radio and voice recording (or even line-in recording), and 16GB of space for all your favorite media. Not enough? Pop in an SD card for a little extra.

Just Plain Slick Too many media players forget about what's on the outside. The J3 is just 9.9mm thick and features a brushed metallic bezel that's ultra-stylish, and downright attractive.

3.3-Inch AMOLED Display The J3 boasts a 16 million color, 3.3-inch AMOLED display with a 480 x 272 pixel resolution. Thanks to the low-power display technology, the screen is viewable from virtually any angle. It looks great in the dark and even in direct sunlight. AMOLED turns electric signals into video 1,000 times faster than the speed of conventional LCDs, leaving no ghost images while playing video.

Intuitive Touchscreen Interface The COWON J3 boasts super-intuitive touch controls, with gesture recognition features like zoom-able album art, pictures, and text; TrueType fonts for clear visibility at any zoom level; and more. Get where you need fast directly from the durable anti-scratch touchscreen.

Video Playback The J3 plays AVI, WMV, and ASF video files, with codec support for DivX 3/4/5, Xvid SP/ASP, and WMV 7/8/9. That means less conversion on your end. Enjoy all your favorite clips and shows, and just tilt the unit to switch to 16:9 widescreen viewing.

Grab the optional video out composite cable, and you can send your signal to a television for some full-size viewing.

Enjoy Your Music The J3 is a full-featured music player, and it's definitely one for the afficionados. With support for MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC, WAV, and APE formats, you can play back most any file. Get detailed track info on the J3's screen with meta tag support, and view LDB 1.0 and 2.0 lyrics files while you listen.

JetEffect Music Enhancement Dial in the perfect sound no matter what you're listening to with Cowon's various sound enhancement tools:

BBE: Refines sound quality
Mach3Bass: Provides deeper, tighter low-end
MP Enhance: Sonic restoration for compressed music formats
3D Surround: Provides 3D sound effect
5-Band EQ: Customizeable equalizer with adjustable band and bandwidth filter

FM Radio and Recorder Enjoy your favorite FM Radio programming using the J3's unique "jog shuttle" touchscreen control for selecting stations. Store your favorites in up to 39 user presets, and record live radio for later listening.

Photo and Document Viewer View or share slideshows of your favorite JPG images, and read your TXT text documents wherever you are.

Bluetooth Freedom The J3 features built-in Bluetooth 2.0 support (A2DP, AVRCP Profile) for use with various wireless devices. Get rid of those cables and enjoy the benefits.

Digital Clock With Alarm Set an alarm to play your music or FM radio, and use the sleep timer to drift off to your favorite songs. You can also use the clock to schedule FM recording for a particular time.

Voice Recording Record voice memos, lectures, meetings or whatever else you need for later using the built-in microphone. The J3 also supports line-in recording, for grabbing audio from external devices like CD players.

Energy Efficient Entertainment The J3 will give you a whopping 64 hours of music playback, and up to 11 hours of video playback, a single charge of its lithium-polymer battery.

Flash Player The pre-installed Adobe Flash Player lets you enjoy Flash games and other utilities, along with the Flash content present on many web sites.

What's in the Box
Cowon J3 16 GB (Black), Earphones, USB 2.0 Cable, Quick Start Guide, Manual CD

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Denon AVR3310CI 7.1-Channel Network Home Theater Receiver Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)The AVR 3310CI is loaded with nice features. Excellent sound quality, inputs for just about anything, and decent menus for setting up and using the receiver. The amplifiers give a very good quality sound, not as good as my MacIntosch system but not bad for the money. Construction is good and it runs fairly cool being it is in a somewhat enclosed area. Technical support is good in that there is little wait time when calling.
Now for the bad. I have now gone through 3 AVR 3310CI receivers trying to get one that works. I believe that most if not all of the issues I have are due to firmware problems as the hardware seems to work just fine. I would try to update the firmware but there are even problems with this function as it takes forever (many hours) and most of the time it will abort or hang in the middle of the download/update process so you have to try and try again. My first unit eventually got into a hang state in that it couldn't update the firmware and as a result the receiver just kept on trying with no success. During this time the other functions were not available. According to Denon there was no over the phone fix for this problem and suggested I either return it to the store and send it in for repair but that I am responsible for the shipping costs.
My second (and as of Saturday my 3rd unit) has two out-of-the-box issues. First is when connecting to Internet radio I get a "Please Wait" window. Sometimes this hangs the system and sometimes I can recover from it. On my recently installed unit this past weekend I immediately got this message and waited 15 minutes or longer and still no resolution. I turned off/on the unit and after a while the message went away and I was able to use the Internet function.
The second problem is when selecting the setup menu button. The menu comes up fine but within 5 seconds it starts to go dimmer and dimmer and to the point that you cannot see the menu on the TV screen anymore. This occurred with units number 2 and 3. I am afraid to do a firmware update due to the many problems that I had with the first unit and I was told that others had the same problem (even Denon admits to this and recommended to me NOT to perform updates).
I have spent many hours on the phone with the Denon Techies and they say to just send the unit back and they will repair it. However, I have to pay for the shipping costs (estimated at $50). I refuse do this on out-of-the-box problems. These are design problems and not normal failures.
So at this point in time I'm considering switching to a different model number and hope that it has a more stable design.
One other area is in regards to the search and general navigating capabilities on the Internet. Given the price of the AVR 3310CI this function could be a lot more sophisticated as the current function is pretty basic.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Denon AVR3310CI 7.1-Channel Network Home Theater Receiver

The AVR-3310CI is a technological tour de force, designed for consumers wanting to network their AV system. Ethernet connectivity opens up your AV system to host of exciting capabilities like audio and jpeg photo streaming and Internet radio. Additionally, subscription music services like Rhapsody and Napster are supported. The AVR3310CI packs a punch with 7-channels of onboard amplification producing 840-watts of total power (120 per channel). The amplifiers can be assigned for 7.1 channel surround sound, or a 5.1 channel system in the 'main" room and power a pair of speakers in a second 'zone". This only scratches the surface of the AVR3310CI Multi-zone (3) / multi-source (3) capability. Enhanced power amp assign features, second and third zone programming feature allow the AVR3310 to be the hub of a sophisticated whole house system. For video connectivity, the AVR3310CI is equipped with 1080p compatible HDMI 1.3a Repeating technology, delivering both audio and video to your HDTV with single HDMI cable. This HDMI connectivity supports the latest generation surround sound formats available on Blu-ray disc, including Dolby TrueHD and DD+, dts-HD and dts-HR. Also included is Dolby Laboratories new Pro Logic IIz Matrix decoding featuring front height effects channels that expands front soundstage. The AVR3310CI boasts a number of Audyssey technologies. Advanced Audyssey MultEQ analyzes a speaker systems interaction with room acoustics, and then delivers custom tailored correction processing to optimize clarity and tonal balance throughout the listening space. Audyssey Dynamic Volume is an automatic volume-leveling system that tracks audio dynamics to eliminate the irritating volume swings between TV shows and commercials. Audyssey Dynamic EQ is also on board to ensure rich bass and smooth tonal balance at low volume listening levels.

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