Cowon O2 Review

Cowon has a reputation of coming up with great portable devices that can match the best but they are priced on the higher side. However Cowon O2 is a powerful player that has been priced attractively too.  The player is in direct comparison to the revolutionary Apple iPod touch with its touch screen interface and similar price point.

Cowon O2 specifications :

• Dimensions : 4.7″ x 0.7″ x 2.9″
• Weight : 7.2 oz
• Interface : High Speed USB
• Display : 4.3″ TFT touchscreen
• Memory : 8GB internal flash
• Card slot : SDHC Memory Card
• Supported image formats : BMP, GIF, PNG, JPEG, TIFF
• Supported audio formats :  ASF, MP3, WAV, WMA,
  FLAC, Ogg Vorbis,  MPEG 1 Audio, MPEG 2 Audio
• Supported video formats :  ASF, AVI, WMV, XviD, H.264,
  MPEG-1, MPEG-4, DivX, MPEG-4 SP, Motion JPEG
• Battery : Internal rechargeable Lithium polymer
• OS Compatibility : Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, Vista
• Approx. price : $249 (16GB)

The Cowon O2 is available in both black and white and looks as good in either. The available capacities start from 8GB and extend upto 32GB much like the iPod touch. However it does have the advantage of a card slot to further expand its storage capacity.

The dimensions of the device are rather small keeping in mind its 4.3″ display. It easily slips in to the pocket without getting noticed too much. The body of the O2 is made up of plastic but its high quality and feels great in the hand. Also the device uses flash memory so it can take the rough treatment you might give it.  The O2 has a nice frame running all round the display that adds to the ergonomics while holding it in the hand.

There are only a couple of manual controls on the device which are the power/hold button on the right and the volume rocker at the top. Apart from the controls, you can find a headphone jack at the left side. The charging port is at the bottom. Within a flap are concealed the miniUSB port, SDHC card slot and the reset switch. The miniUSB port can be used to hook up the player to TV through a composite cable sold by Cowon as an accessory, though it does not turn the player in a portable AV recorder.

The player starts up real fast in under 10 seconds. The interface is similar to iPod touch having five icons lined up across the scene that are for the major functions of the player. The five icons are for Music, Videos, Pictures, Recent Files and Documents.  There are hidden smaller icons also such as settings and utilities like calculator etc. The inner menus are not as good as the main menu as they are cluttered and the fonts used are tiny forcing you to use the bundled stylus.

The collection organization on the Cowon O2 is not based on ID3 tags which is a shocker! It follows the file-tree organization structure, something not acceptable when ID3 tags are the standard and are followed by almost every manufacturer. Linux users will feel at home as they are accustomed to this file structure in their daily lives. Navigating through the menus is much similar to Linux that takes time getting used to.

The Cowon O2 is not a feature rich player as it lacks Bluetooth, WiFi commonly found in next generation portable players. However it does have a card slot which supports SDHC format. It can come in handy if you want to expand storage by only a few gigs and not double by going for next higher version. The player has a 10-band graphic equalizer which lacks on the iPod.

Format support is truly exceptional in all the three departments. You rarely find a player supporting so many formats. It has support for five image formats, loads of audio and video format including high-definition video playback. Right from AVI support to DivX support to H.264 playback, the player has it all. The player even accepts high resolution video files and plays them smoothly. The two major standards it misses out on MOV and VOB, not many of us have files in those formats.

You can do the regular stuff with the videos but Cowon has included a feature called ‘favoriting’ which is basically bookmarking your videos. You can change the aspect ratio of the video, turn on/off subtitles, zoom in/out or even pan the video. Multiple audio tracks are supported too and it also has 3D sound enhancement.

The music department is no different and has loads of features stacked up. Apart from wide format support, you should note than DRM protected WMA/AAC files are not supported. There are various preset equalizers and audio enhancement features. EQ settings can be adjusted according to your taste. There are various sound enhancement options can help in jazzing up the music quickly.

The performance of the player is amazing when talking about the audio playback and video playback. The viewing angles are surprisingly good too. The bundled earphones however do no do justice to the player’s capability. However the display has low resolution which takes some pleasure out of the interface. The resolution does not hinder during video playback which is great to say the least. The player is capable to delivering 8 hours of video playback and 18 hours of audio playback on a single charge. Although not great but more than acceptable numbers. The player can be charged through an adapter as well as using the miniUSB port.

Pros :

• Elegant design
• Large display
• Wide variety of format support
• SDHC card slot
• Good battery life

Cons :

• File tree organization
• No ID3 sorting
• No WiFi
• No Bluetooth

Final Thoughts

The Cowon O2 is an excellent performer with a huge number of formats supported. The player as such does not have many features to boast about but the audio and video players are excellent. Having either bluetooth or WiFi would have added a lot more value to the player. The battery life is good and can be charged both via the charger as well as the miniUSB port. Grab this one if you are looking at performance rather than features.

Rating : 4/5