::A Geek in Korea::

Cowon O2

I’ve been a fan of the Cowon product line since I picked up the awesome Cowon D2 for a birthday present last year. I’ve had it on me, playing music and watching video daily. When Cowon announced a bigger, more robust, more video friendly flash based video player I put aside my money right away.

I’ve had a few days to play around with my Cowon O2 and I can assure anyone looking to upgrade from a Cowon D2 to a more featured PMP solution, the Cowon O2 does not disappoint.

Features

The model I own is the 32 Gig Flash model. It has no DMB. My model lacks the Extended Dictionary.  It only has an English-> Korean, Korean-> English dictionary like the D2. I won’t comment on the DMB or dictionary features, because unless you are intent on teaching or studying in Korea, they are only a niche perk, not a must have.

The Cowon O2 supports much higher resolution video, and a much greater range of video codecs. The Cowon D2 was limited to 320×240 Xvid. This meant a long, annoying process of converting video over to the proper format with a program such as Avidemux. The Cowon O2 plays anything I throw at it without needing to convert. Quicktime? Xvid? Mpeg? THEORA?! No problem. If you watch a lot of video podcasts, and are worried you’ll miss out on content because you aren’t using an iPod, no fear, the Cowon O2 plays nearly everything on the web.

Reading from the package, the video support is listed as: AVI, WMV, ASF, MP4, MKV, OGM, MPG/MPEG, DAT, MTV. That’s pretty impressive support for some of the most obscure codecs.

The video codec support is great, but the audio codec support is just as long and varied as well.

From the package, the audio support is listed as: MP3, WMA, ASF, FLAC, OGG, M4A, MKA, TTA, APE, MPC, WV, WAV. To be honest, I don’t really have anything in my collection outside of mp3 files, but it’s nice to know if I stumble upon some new format my PMP will play it. There is also a speaker built in, so even without headphones you can listen.

The Cowon D2, and Cowon O2 are OS neutral. They work as USB drag and drop devices, so you can take them to any machine, plug them in, and have them show up.

However, the document viewer Cowon uses to compress Word Documents, PDF files, and other images and text files is Windows Only. You must convert files for the Cowon O2 using proprietary Windows only software. It’s not included in the software on the machine, and it looked to cost 3000 won (?) from the Cowon site. If you are going to make a player that works with Linux (!), why make desirable software for it that doesn’t work on that platform? If the Cowon O2 supported .CBR files for comics instead of a proprietary format, the would be much more love from me on the document reading front.

Packaging

I ordered the Cowon 02 from Cowon’s shop directly. I paid for the optional leather case and screen protector. In the package, the silicon shell case also came free. The screen protector’s directions were badly written, with the picture not matching the layout of the stickers. You couldn’t follow the directions and not end up with bubbles under the protector. We had to wash off the dust and try a second time. Eventually we got a bubble free screen protector that looks great.

The silicon protector does not work with the leather case. If you want to protect your screen with the leather case, you can’t also protect the paint job with the silicon shell. The paint is non-glossy and doesn’t attract fingerprints by the way. The leather case has a nice integrated stand, and the stylus doubles as a stand as well for those that want the silicon case. Both are very clever. The stylus cord is just long enough to allow the fat stylus to reach the corners of the screen.

The headphones are cheap and replacable. No worse than the ones included with the Cowon D2 if I remember correctly. You’ll want better ones to take advantage of the player fully.

Navigation and Screen
The main perk upgrading from a Cowon D2 to a Cowon O2 is the increased screen size. The screen is physically more than twice as large, and as clear and crisp. It is 4.3 inches diagonally. This means that watching movies on the go is a lot better on the eyes.

The overall size of the player is around the size of a Palm Pilot or so. It is fatter than the iPod touch, without a doubt, but you can still easily slip it into a pocket. The placement of the external buttons for power, lock, and volume mean that putting it in your pocket doesn’t stop you from controlling the player when you need to either.

The touch screen is easy to navigate by finger or with the fat stylus. When a video is being played, touching the screen brings up a menu. Tapping one of the on screen buttons will navigate in the menu. Even better, while you navigate, the video keeps playing beneath the semi-transparent menus! The UI is also customizable, but I haven’t found any skins I want to use to replace the default.

One of the major improvements to the UI over the Cowon D2 is the “Recent Files” menu item. It will list all the files you’ve recently been viewing, the day you were watching them, and how far into them you were. You can then resume watching at the point where you left off. Instead of having to keep a number of bookmarks to keep track of every video you might stop and start in a day, you can instead see all the files you haven’t finished and pick and choose.

This is great for someone that likes to stop and start videos depending on their location, for example switching to a video on a subway, then to an audio file when walking around town to avoid bumping into people. I appreciate this menu overcoming an annoyance I had with the Cowon D2.

The only physical buttons are for volume, and power, which is a slide toggle you must hold, Cowon D2 style. You can also use the power toggle to lock the screen.

Battery Life and External Memory

The amazing 52 hours audio battery live for the Cowon D2 isn’t possible with the larger screen of the Cowon O2. However, the battery life for the Cowon 02, 18 hours for audio, is respectable. Video for the D2 is rated at 10 hours, while the Cowon O2 has an impressive 8 hours. I never had battery problems with the Cowon D2, and I don’t expect to have any with the Cowon O2 either.

The power adapter was proprietary, so it won’t work with the D2. It’s a 5v plug, but the Cowon O2 also draws power from the USB when you charge it. The USB port on the Cowon D2 was covered by a small latch that you detached to prevent dust from getting inside. Thankfully, the SDHC card slot on the Cowon O2 is ALSO covered by this same slot. I have a 32 gig Flash model, but with the SDHC card slot I could potentially upgrade the space in the player up to 48 gigs! All flash! No moving parts!

Overall

I’m really happy with my purchase. I’ve given my Cowon D2 to my wife, and now have my new toy to keep me company. It’s improved on all the faults of the Cowon D2 in one degree or another, minus battery life. Viewing video on the player is a vast improvement, the UI is solid. The player is larger and heavier, but it’s still fine to put in a pocket and carry around. The codec support is unparalleled, and there is no DRM restrictions to worry about. There is no Bluetooth support, no Wifi support, and no browser. If you wanted any of those, other Cowon products support those features. I’m extremely happy with the powerful, portable video player I’ve got.