Cowon D2+ Review

Cowon D2+ is the updated version of Cowon D2 that released a couple of years back and had got some great reviews. The audio quality has been improved along with slicker touch interface. The device has excellent price to performance ratio that will attract buyers the most. It has loads of features seem in all the new generation portable media players.

Cowon D2+ specifications :

• Dimensions : 3.07 X 2.18 X 0.65 inches
• Weight : 91 g
• Display : 2.5″ TFT with 320 x 240 resolution
• Memory : 4GB/8GB/16GB
• Interface : USB 2.0 High Speed
• Card slot : SD/SDHC/MMC cards
• Audio file formats : MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC, WAV, APE
• Video file formats : AVI, WMV
• Image file formats : JPG, BMP
• Approx. price : $179 (16GB)

The design of the device has remained unchanged and it still is quite fat at 0.65 inches. Controls for power, menu, button hold, and volume can be found on the top edge of the player. USB port, audio, peripheral connectivity ports are located on the left side. The bottom side has the card slot.

The 2.5″ TFT screen has QVGA resolution and can display up to 1.6  million colors. The screen quality is great and the images turn out crisp and clear. The interface has been tweaked around and made more user friendly. The touch screen uses a stylus to accept inputs but fingers work just as good for most of the tasks. The entire body of the D2+ has been made from plastic that reduces weight at stake of build quality.

The player supports all major file formats except for AAC. AAC has slowly and steadily risen among top used audio format and no support for it might be a deal breaker for a few. It also has a touch reader, voice recorder and other small apps. There are loads of other features that the D2+ supports to make it a complete PMP.

The best feature for D2 was its audio quality and that hasn’t changed in the D2+ either. It improves the audio quality and also adds the BBE+ suite of audio enhancements making the experience worthwhile. It has all the major settings such as repeat, shuffle, equalizer settings etc.There is a small pop-up menu in the bottom left corner that lets you access the song browser, bookmarks, playlists etc with ease.

Supported file formats include MP3, WMA, FLAC, OGG, Audible, WAV etc. AAC as mentioned before is notably absent from the device. The song browser feature on the Cowon D2+ feels a bit awkward to use  after having used all those really awesome touch interfaces on the latest PMPs. Scrolling especially is lot of pain with the D2+. One can browse the songs using the ID3 tag information or even the directory structure, something not possible with most of the PMPs.

Video playback on the device has also been inherited from the D2 without much change, leaving us disappointed. The supported formats on the D2+ are uncommon ones ie. AVI and WMV having a resolution of 320 x 240. Converting videos to those formats can be pain as one is inlikely to have videos in those formats. This is a major downer as other portable media players come with more often used formats making life easier for the end user.

Some of the other features on the D2+ include FM Radio that works well and has good clarity. Photos, text and voice recording add to the goodness of the player. Other small apps such as calculator, notepad, flash based games come preinstalled on the device. These were added to the D2 with a firmware update. The player also has a memory expansion slot that supports SD, SDHC and MMC card formats. The memory card is treated like internal memory and all files from both internal memory and memory card are shown together.

Talking about the performance of the player, the player outscores a number of its competitors in its price range with its fabulous audio quality. The bundled earbuds with the player are nothing to rave about as they offer average sound quality. You are better off upgrading to a better pair of earbuds to enjoy the music in its full glory. There are quite a few audio settings that you van tinker around with. This includes five-band EQ, Mach3Bass, BBE enhancement, 3D Surround, Stereo Enhancement, and MP3 Enhancement. If that wasn’t enough, you can even tune the frequencies for the graphic equalisers.

The video playback on the device is bright and crisp and there is no jittery playback. The playback is smooth at 30 frames per second. There will however be quality loss when converting videos to the required formats. Video bookmarking is supported on the device along with the auto-resume feature. Audio enhancement settings work with video as well which is a nice thing to have. The screen displays all the information regarding the song being played such as time elapsed, artist name, album art etc. Playlists too can be formed on the device itself. The battery life of the player is rated at 52 hours for audio and 11 hours for video which is nothing short of great. The player overall has pretty strong performance.

Pros :

• Touch screen
• Large file format support
• Great audio quality
• Large number of audio settings
• Smooth video playback
• Strong performance

Cons :

• No AAC support
• All plastic body
• Average earbuds
• Less used video format support

Final Thoughts

The Cowon D2+ is a nice offering from the company looking to compete with the likes of Apple iPod series. This one certainly gives the iPod Nano a run for its money. It has strong performance and many other features. However, it lacks the all important AAC support. The display on the device is great with good video playback. The audio quality is the player’s strongest point with huge number of audio settings to fine tune the sound to your liking. The price is definitely attractive coupled with great performance, it surely is a winner. There are couple of drawbacks such as no AAC support or support for less used video formats that needs to be factored in before making the purchase.

Rating : 4/5