Cowon V5: To Buy, or not to buy?

[fohfoh]

Thanks for the response man, it's sounding better and better^^

EDIT: movie player specs don't mention AAC audio support. is it included?

I think so.

According to this... No.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20001124-1.html

But then again, half the review is written with "douchebag on my forehead", so I'm not entirely sure.

[killazys]

oh, and cnet fails at reviews anyway. for them, it's kind of like
iPod > everything

[fohfoh]

oh, and cnet fails at reviews anyway. for them, it's kind of like
iPod > everything

Technically the NWZ X1060B from Sony beat it... but failed on price (It goes for about 400-500 dollars for the 32GB model)

[Proin Drakenzol]

Thanks for the response man, it's sounding better and better^^

EDIT: movie player specs don't mention AAC audio support. is it included?

I think so.

According to this... No.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20001124-1.html

But then again, half the review is written with "douchebag on my forehead", so I'm not entirely sure.

I put an .mkv contained video that claimed to use AAC audio and it played just fine with sound and all. Make of that what you will.


[edit]Just read the CNET article. My god how far they have fallen. The only conclusion I can come to after reading their review is that the reviewer is mentally retarded, deaf and without hands, instead using his stub wrists to attempt manipulation.

Either that or he had a different media player.

I also find it extremely disengenious (sp?) that he bashes the proprietary format USB/HDMI connection when iPods and Zunes are equally proprietary.

He also ignores the fact that it has superb audio quality and excellent video quality (the point of a PMP, no?) in favor of knocking stuff that doesn't even matter in a comparison between products.

He also forgets to mention that, while Windows CE does need a stylus, it comes with a fucking stlyus-like attachment (I personally don't like it, but it's there).

[killazys]

YAY AAC. Thanks for that tidbit proin, and i had that feeling the whole time I was reading the review too..

[Proin Drakenzol]

YAY AAC. Thanks for that tidbit proin, and i had that feeling the whole time I was reading the review too..

FYI, from Newegg:

Support Formats
Audio Formats    MP3/WMA/WAV/OGG/FLAC/APE/AAC
Video Formats    AVI/WMV/ASF/MP4/MKV/MPG/MPEG/DAT/TS/TP/TRP/M2TS/ 3G
Images Formats    BMP/JPEG/GIF/TIFF/PNG/RAW
Other Formats    TXT


Cowon's site doesn't list it, and I don't have any AAC files seperate from video, so don't take it as gospel truth, okay?

My response to the cnet review:

I loaded a video file (an *.mkv file) with AAC audio and it played perfectly fine.

And, Donald, if you can't read the text on the player maybe you should have your eyes checked. My right eye is 20/200 (left is 20/26) and I can read all the text with my glasses off and with my left eye closed when held to my maximum arm length (a distance beyond reasonable expectation as is).

As for your responsiveness complaint... I just don't see it. The player responds to the lightest touch, instantly.

And telling people to get the Archos 5 or the Zune HD? Neither supports Xvid yet (as you yourself pointed out). Nor do they support as many other file types as the Cowon V5.

The Zune HD requires all the extra cables the Cowon V5 needs for video output, also in a proprietary format. The Zune HD also lacks an expansion slot and has a significantly smaller screen. Not to mention lower battery life.

The Archos 5 is heavier, and has less battery life. It's also a hard disk drive (hence the weight) whereas the Cowon V5 is a solid state. This is mitigated by the greater capacity at the same pricepoint (160GB) but if you don't want to carry around shock and impact sensitive storage devices then you don't want the Archos 5 anyway.


And the Windows CE complaint? They do provide you with a stylus in the box that attaches to the player (and doubles as an arm strap). I don't need it myself (fat fingers and all) but since you can barely manipulate the (significantly larger) Media software I guess you do. Oh, you also forgot to mention the fact that you can calibrate the touch screen and the double click sensitivity (through Control Panel in Windows).


Video quality is superb. Crisp, sharp video is  the name of the game with extreme viewing angles available.

Also, this is not a PVP, it's a PMP (portable media player), audio quality issues are still significant. The BBE enhancements are excellent. The audio quality difference between the Cowon V5 and the Zune HD is significant when using  a pair of Ultimate Ears 700 IEMs.


I'm not even going to compare the Cowon V5 to the iPod Touch. The comparison is so ludicrously in the V5's favor it's not worth the effort.

[fohfoh]

I lol'd

[killazys]

oo it's out

[mgz]

demand 32gig j3

[killazys]

>32gig
>microSD slot
....
>profit

[fohfoh]

demand 32gig j3

Why? When there's a microsd slot?

[killazys]

Well I ordered it. Arriving Wednesday.. will see if it supports UTF-8 plaintext subtitles.

[mgz]

demand 32gig j3

Why? When there's a microsd slot?

because large microsd = more money and reading from the microsd reduces battery

not to mention the obvious more storage in general.

I have about 55gig of music the more i can stick on at once the better for me

[killazys]

Do you really listen to all 55gig of it? I mean, that's around 8300 songs.. I have that many, and I probably only would ever feel like listening to a third of that..

[mgz]

Do you really listen to all 55gig of it? I mean, that's around 8300 songs.. I have that many, and I probably only would ever feel like listening to a third of that..

yea i listen to LOTS of it since i drive about 7 hours a day, i listen to A LOT of different stuff so i can try not to hear the same shit to many times and get burned out on it.

[killazys]

wow. never mind xP
Cowon V5 - i got it
it's very attractive.
very high quality music/audio playback
personally, i like the UI
one thing.
no asian font support.
all the characters are squares
Is there a way to fix this?

[fohfoh]

Depends how you input your tags. Most of mine show up in my S9, but there's also a few that are just squares.

[killazys]

No, it didn't.. none of mine showed up. But anyways, I managed to fix the problem by installing Korean firmware. Now i have ridiculous added functionality, and it took me three seconds in settings to change the display language to english anyway

[Proin Drakenzol]

No, it didn't.. none of mine showed up. But anyways, I managed to fix the problem by installing Korean firmware. Now i have ridiculous added functionality, and it took me three seconds in settings to change the display language to english anyway

I have the same problem with Japanese, I'm going to try installing the Japanese language pack for Windows.

[killazys]

Language pack? I didn't know they made language packs for embedded Windows freely available. I would recommend just installing Japanese firmware, which is available from the global site..

But do as you wish