Damn good player
I love music in almost any of its manifestations - from a variety of musical genres, ending with the desire to knock out a melody on the floor. And often the “warm tube sound” is not so important for me as the music itself (well, or the words in the songs) - therefore, without a player, I, perhaps, am only at home.
For a long time, the Cowon S9 player was one of my favorite gadgets - it suited almost everyone. In addition to the aesthetically pleasing appearance, he had a long battery life (50 hours), a large color screen, convenient control and uncompromising sound, which is one of the main trump cards of Cowon devices.
The only thing that did not suit me was the lack of a memory card slot, because on such a convenient device I wanted to store as much of my multimedia junk as possible.
')
Accordingly, there were two solutions to the “problem” - to take a large capacity Cowon S9 (maximum is 32GB), or to take Cowon D2 , which is not inferior in terms of sound and operating time, but with a slot for memory cards (though there are also disadvantages the screen is smaller and not so convenient control). At one time, I went both ways - I took S9 for 16GB (32 strangled a toad), and my wife took a D2 + for 4GB and an SD card for 16. To have both players, you could experiment and always had something to compare. Well, in fact, turned up the case for the "comparison" - the new player Cowon J3 , which, in fact, has absorbed all the best from their fellow pioneers. To understand what level of devices we are talking about, just look at the reviews in the Yandex.Market or on the comments on reviews of previous models.
Cowon J3> Cowon S9> Cowon D2 +
And if the review of the S9 model at one time was called “ A Step from the Ideal ”, then in today's article the player has become the main character ... well, yes, perhaps without flaws - a sort of work on the bugs. So I suggest to get acquainted :)
Cowon J3> Cowon S9> Cowon D2 +
The new player comes in a plastic container of conical shape, which is transformed into a flower pot in a tricky way - something we have already seen once) Included - the player itself, a driver disk (and a Cowon JetAudio combine), a branded USB wire, headphones and a handful pieces of paper. It is a pity there is no cover - it would be very helpful.
90% of the front surface is occupied by glass, which protects the AMOLED touchscreen display (3.3 ″, 480x272, 16 million colors). The remaining 10% of the case is occupied by a damn stylish metal insert with a fine grinding texture.
Everything is good, but the screen is extremely branded - the prints remain from any touch.
The back side of the player is very similar to the one that was in iAudio 9 - a black matte cover without unnecessary “garbage” - only two small “dots” (microphone / reset) and a speaker slot. The latter is very useful - even if the opportunity to “listen to music in a lot” is not needed, then the function of the alarm clock may be useful to many.
At the upper end it is unusually empty - all buttons are spaced on the sides. The button in the key / lock (s) is on the left, and on the right, the play / pause button and two pairs of rocker keys to control the volume and tracks. The control is not as convenient as in S9, but there are more than enough hardware buttons here - it is more convenient than with D2 / D2 +.
Everything else is at the bottom - a headphone jack and a flip-up cap, behind which are a proprietary USB / AV connector and a slot for a microSD card.
The case is almost the same size as the S9, but it still seems more compact. Specifications do not lie - 56x106,5x9,9 (mm) with a weight of 76 grams. Very nice and comfortable to hold.
The player comes to full combat readiness after 1 second after switching on - this pleasant change has already become traditional for Cowon players and is no longer so surprised. The interface ... it is very similar to the S9, in fact, everything is the same, but under the new sauce, quite original.
The main menu consists of 10 items, which will be discussed in a couple of lines. Above - the status bar, which displays the time, volume, battery charge and something else depending on the selected mode. Below - the soft button and the name of the current track - all this can change on the screen, depending on the position of the device in space (due to the built-in gyroscope). Looking ahead - everything works smoothly and without the slightest hint of brakes.
Music
Over this window a good job. If in S9 there were a lot of distracting buttons without signatures (which is very useful, if you look at them once), then on the contrary everything was kept to a minimum. Large track cover, when clicked, the necessary information appears. Below are three music control buttons and a progss bar. And at the very top - a pop-up menu (it contains all the removed buttons - adding to favorites and bookmarks, equalizers and playback modes) and two buttons - to exit to the main menu and navigate through playlists.
The pop-up menu has become more convenient - it is very well optimized and some settings have appeared, which I had to go into before. So, there was a file search, the ability to change the background under the text on the fly, change the playback speed of the track). And among the 35 available equalizer presets, it became even easier to find the necessary (my favorite is still the BBE Headphone 2).
Videos
If you wish, you can watch videos, but this is, I believe, a secondary function for the player. Some formats and codecs are supported (detailed specs below), even subtitles - it is very nice to watch something on such a colorful screen, it would be even bigger ...
Four subsequent functions since Cowon S9 practically did not change:
Pictures
Primitive image viewer, with a “slide show” mode and the ability to rotate the image,
Documents
Ability to read text documents. You can change the text / background color and text size, as well as enable auto-scrolling.
Flash
Support for SWF toys or utilities. If desired, the functionality of the player can be slightly improved by means of third-party applications, but for more than a year I have not used it. Well, yes, there was some kind of subway map and a couple of games - all this is pampering for 5 minutes.
Browser
File browser to navigate through the contents of the player. No more.
Radio
Like last time, it's a terrific radio made. Virtual rotary knob, the rotation of which leads to switching frequencies. Very convenient - you can’t skip the one you need (FM range from 87.5 to 108.0 MHz is available). But just in case there is an automatic station search, which everything found is automatically stored in memory. If desired, you can record the air .... the only pity is that without headphones you will not listen - there is no built-in radio antenna, headphones act as it.
Recorder
Voice recorder, with the ability to record (up to 256kbps) through a microphone or LineIn. Two large buttons (record and play) - writes to the victory :)
Utilities
Primitive notebook, notebook, calculator and game on the gyroscope. All this was still in S9, I wrote about it and I will not repeat it. But the main thing - you can put some additional applications, for which you need to climb on sites like w3bsit3-dns.com or CowonWorld.
Settings
Very green place, because There are really a lot of settings - they are all divided into categories. But there are practically no differences from the settings of the Cowon S9 player, so I will not repeat again - read, see in the previous review .
A non-removable lithium-polymer battery (750 mAh capacity) according to the manufacturer should be enough for 64 (!) Hours in audio mode and 11 hours in video mode. I’ll say right away that I didn’t test from call to call, but it plays really painfully for a long time ... and it never happened that this manufacturer deceived. In any case, even if the player is able to play at least 50 hours - this is already very, very good.
The sound is once again surprising - it is incredibly loud and crystal clear (on the appropriate quality tracks). It is easy not to hear the approaching subway car, the ring at the door or the telephone - you have to be careful here. And the main thing is not to make another mistake at the very beginning, when after the first launch the player suggests choosing a region. It is necessary to indicate something from the list “Not included in the European Union” - I have always pressed the United States. Only then the sound will be so loud that it will be simply dangerous to listen at the maximum at the maximum) For those who have nakosyachil when they first start, the advice is simple - connect the player to the computer via a wire and delete the Param.cfg file from the Player's folder. After the reboot, everything will be as planned by sensible engineers.
Advantages and disadvantages
Nice design, excellent build quality, compact body
Large and juicy AMOLED screen, external speaker
Convenient management, the possibility of flashing
Finally a memory card slot
Long battery life
Sound quality - an whitewash
No case included
Brand glossy screen
High enough price
Price : depending on the size - 8, 16 and 32 GB are respectively 7500, 9000 and 11500 rubles.
In my spoiled look, in Cowon J3 there is absolutely everything that you may need from a player. At least, I’m not going to name what I want in it (I need _ for the player_) to add. Great battery life and excellent sound - what the player should have in the first place. And J3 possesses this to the full - it’s enough to hear once (not through regular headphones) and you never want to come back to “listen from the phone, everything suits”.
As elsewhere, there are downsides, but this time they are so insignificant that you can just close your eyes to them. Well, a sleek housing, well, a non-standard connector ... so what? The connector has its advantages, and the screen is decided by the cover or sleeve. Even a high price can be “fooled” by taking the youngest model with a bulky microSD card inside.
The player has absorbed all the best from the models D2 and S9 - these two models are also likely to appeal to most music lovers. But the “marketing path” of the Cowon J3 can be considered successful - it will definitely find its customers, as it was with all the other models at the time. And if it makes no sense to update from S9, then from any other player I highly recommend it. Thanks also to say what you have advised;)
Successes!
For a long time, the Cowon S9 player was one of my favorite gadgets - it suited almost everyone. In addition to the aesthetically pleasing appearance, he had a long battery life (50 hours), a large color screen, convenient control and uncompromising sound, which is one of the main trump cards of Cowon devices.
The only thing that did not suit me was the lack of a memory card slot, because on such a convenient device I wanted to store as much of my multimedia junk as possible.
')
Accordingly, there were two solutions to the “problem” - to take a large capacity Cowon S9 (maximum is 32GB), or to take Cowon D2 , which is not inferior in terms of sound and operating time, but with a slot for memory cards (though there are also disadvantages the screen is smaller and not so convenient control). At one time, I went both ways - I took S9 for 16GB (32 strangled a toad), and my wife took a D2 + for 4GB and an SD card for 16. To have both players, you could experiment and always had something to compare. Well, in fact, turned up the case for the "comparison" - the new player Cowon J3 , which, in fact, has absorbed all the best from their fellow pioneers. To understand what level of devices we are talking about, just look at the reviews in the Yandex.Market or on the comments on reviews of previous models.
Cowon J3> Cowon S9> Cowon D2 +
And if the review of the S9 model at one time was called “ A Step from the Ideal ”, then in today's article the player has become the main character ... well, yes, perhaps without flaws - a sort of work on the bugs. So I suggest to get acquainted :)
Cowon J3> Cowon S9> Cowon D2 +
The new player comes in a plastic container of conical shape, which is transformed into a flower pot in a tricky way - something we have already seen once) Included - the player itself, a driver disk (and a Cowon JetAudio combine), a branded USB wire, headphones and a handful pieces of paper. It is a pity there is no cover - it would be very helpful.
Appearance
90% of the front surface is occupied by glass, which protects the AMOLED touchscreen display (3.3 ″, 480x272, 16 million colors). The remaining 10% of the case is occupied by a damn stylish metal insert with a fine grinding texture.
Everything is good, but the screen is extremely branded - the prints remain from any touch.
The back side of the player is very similar to the one that was in iAudio 9 - a black matte cover without unnecessary “garbage” - only two small “dots” (microphone / reset) and a speaker slot. The latter is very useful - even if the opportunity to “listen to music in a lot” is not needed, then the function of the alarm clock may be useful to many.
At the upper end it is unusually empty - all buttons are spaced on the sides. The button in the key / lock (s) is on the left, and on the right, the play / pause button and two pairs of rocker keys to control the volume and tracks. The control is not as convenient as in S9, but there are more than enough hardware buttons here - it is more convenient than with D2 / D2 +.
Everything else is at the bottom - a headphone jack and a flip-up cap, behind which are a proprietary USB / AV connector and a slot for a microSD card.
The case is almost the same size as the S9, but it still seems more compact. Specifications do not lie - 56x106,5x9,9 (mm) with a weight of 76 grams. Very nice and comfortable to hold.
Turn on and work
The player comes to full combat readiness after 1 second after switching on - this pleasant change has already become traditional for Cowon players and is no longer so surprised. The interface ... it is very similar to the S9, in fact, everything is the same, but under the new sauce, quite original.
The main menu consists of 10 items, which will be discussed in a couple of lines. Above - the status bar, which displays the time, volume, battery charge and something else depending on the selected mode. Below - the soft button and the name of the current track - all this can change on the screen, depending on the position of the device in space (due to the built-in gyroscope). Looking ahead - everything works smoothly and without the slightest hint of brakes.
Music
Over this window a good job. If in S9 there were a lot of distracting buttons without signatures (which is very useful, if you look at them once), then on the contrary everything was kept to a minimum. Large track cover, when clicked, the necessary information appears. Below are three music control buttons and a progss bar. And at the very top - a pop-up menu (it contains all the removed buttons - adding to favorites and bookmarks, equalizers and playback modes) and two buttons - to exit to the main menu and navigate through playlists.
The pop-up menu has become more convenient - it is very well optimized and some settings have appeared, which I had to go into before. So, there was a file search, the ability to change the background under the text on the fly, change the playback speed of the track). And among the 35 available equalizer presets, it became even easier to find the necessary (my favorite is still the BBE Headphone 2).
Videos
If you wish, you can watch videos, but this is, I believe, a secondary function for the player. Some formats and codecs are supported (detailed specs below), even subtitles - it is very nice to watch something on such a colorful screen, it would be even bigger ...
Four subsequent functions since Cowon S9 practically did not change:
Pictures
Primitive image viewer, with a “slide show” mode and the ability to rotate the image,
Documents
Ability to read text documents. You can change the text / background color and text size, as well as enable auto-scrolling.
Flash
Support for SWF toys or utilities. If desired, the functionality of the player can be slightly improved by means of third-party applications, but for more than a year I have not used it. Well, yes, there was some kind of subway map and a couple of games - all this is pampering for 5 minutes.
Browser
File browser to navigate through the contents of the player. No more.
Radio
Like last time, it's a terrific radio made. Virtual rotary knob, the rotation of which leads to switching frequencies. Very convenient - you can’t skip the one you need (FM range from 87.5 to 108.0 MHz is available). But just in case there is an automatic station search, which everything found is automatically stored in memory. If desired, you can record the air .... the only pity is that without headphones you will not listen - there is no built-in radio antenna, headphones act as it.
Recorder
Voice recorder, with the ability to record (up to 256kbps) through a microphone or LineIn. Two large buttons (record and play) - writes to the victory :)
Utilities
Primitive notebook, notebook, calculator and game on the gyroscope. All this was still in S9, I wrote about it and I will not repeat it. But the main thing - you can put some additional applications, for which you need to climb on sites like w3bsit3-dns.com or CowonWorld.
Settings
Very green place, because There are really a lot of settings - they are all divided into categories. But there are practically no differences from the settings of the Cowon S9 player, so I will not repeat again - read, see in the previous review .
A non-removable lithium-polymer battery (750 mAh capacity) according to the manufacturer should be enough for 64 (!) Hours in audio mode and 11 hours in video mode. I’ll say right away that I didn’t test from call to call, but it plays really painfully for a long time ... and it never happened that this manufacturer deceived. In any case, even if the player is able to play at least 50 hours - this is already very, very good.
The sound is once again surprising - it is incredibly loud and crystal clear (on the appropriate quality tracks). It is easy not to hear the approaching subway car, the ring at the door or the telephone - you have to be careful here. And the main thing is not to make another mistake at the very beginning, when after the first launch the player suggests choosing a region. It is necessary to indicate something from the list “Not included in the European Union” - I have always pressed the United States. Only then the sound will be so loud that it will be simply dangerous to listen at the maximum at the maximum) For those who have nakosyachil when they first start, the advice is simple - connect the player to the computer via a wire and delete the Param.cfg file from the Player's folder. After the reboot, everything will be as planned by sensible engineers.
Advantages and disadvantages Nice design, excellent build quality, compact body Large and juicy AMOLED screen, external speaker Convenient management, the possibility of flashing Finally a memory card slot Long battery life Sound quality - an whitewash No case included Brand glossy screen High enough pricePrice : depending on the size - 8, 16 and 32 GB are respectively 7500, 9000 and 11500 rubles.
Total
In my spoiled look, in Cowon J3 there is absolutely everything that you may need from a player. At least, I’m not going to name what I want in it (I need _ for the player_) to add. Great battery life and excellent sound - what the player should have in the first place. And J3 possesses this to the full - it’s enough to hear once (not through regular headphones) and you never want to come back to “listen from the phone, everything suits”.
As elsewhere, there are downsides, but this time they are so insignificant that you can just close your eyes to them. Well, a sleek housing, well, a non-standard connector ... so what? The connector has its advantages, and the screen is decided by the cover or sleeve. Even a high price can be “fooled” by taking the youngest model with a bulky microSD card inside.
The player has absorbed all the best from the models D2 and S9 - these two models are also likely to appeal to most music lovers. But the “marketing path” of the Cowon J3 can be considered successful - it will definitely find its customers, as it was with all the other models at the time. And if it makes no sense to update from S9, then from any other player I highly recommend it. Thanks also to say what you have advised;)
Successes!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/100229/
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