COWON J3 3.3" Black 16GB MP3 / MP4 Player

Comment:
This player is amazing if you like to hear music as it is meant to be listened. Read so many reviews so decieded to get one and I was very impressed, but it has limitted apps for someone who want only apps vs good audio then get an Ipod. This player is a keeper it has unreal battery life, wish more company's would learn from this. It has a lithium polymer battery so make sure to charge it at around 10% left of battery to ensure battery longitivety. This is a must have for audio and video playback enthusiast, with the AMOLED screen it is so bright and vibrant.

Comment:
The sound quality on this is superb just like all cowon products. Before getting this I had an iPod touch and the cowon j3 is by far better in sound quality. If you are into apps then this may not be for you, but for a sound enthusiast this is a must buy.

Comment:
I got my Cowon J3 as a birthday present from my fiancé; it is to replace my Archos 605 Wifi that died a year ago. I decided I wanted something small, and with flash memory because I mainly use it for listening to music while I'm out of the house. The J3 fits perfectly for what I wanted, a great MP3 player with good video support and picture quality.~Sound Quality~The strongest point of the J3 is without a doubt the superb sound quality. The JetEffect and BBE+ settings really let you find the best possible sound for your headphones. The provided presets are pretty good, however, once you find some good custom settings you won't look back. The great thing is you can also save 4 of your own presets, so you can change how it sounds depending on what you are listening too. I strongly recommend having a decent pair of headphones with this player; otherwise you will be missing out on something special.~Music~The music player is nice, it works very well. Transitions are completely gapless, which is great if you are listening to an actual album. You can browse songs in a big list, or by Artist, Genre, Album, Year, Folder, or what music has been recently added to your player. Album art looks great, and embedded album art is supported as is cover.jpg files. I haven`t had any problems with embedded art in my 953 songs, although, I have heard of some people having issues.One really nice thing about listening to music on the J3 is that when you go back to the main menu the music keeps playing. You can even run other apps as well with the music still playing, though if you go into Video, Radio, or Recorder mode the music will stop.The music player has a basic playlist you can make called Favourites, other than that there is no on the go playlist creation. Playlists are actually fairly poorly implemented on the player. You have to make playlists in a specific way depending on whether you use MSC or MTP mode, and the maximum playlist size is only 400 songs. You can also have the player remember where you left off in a song and resume from that point next time you hit play, this is mainly useful for audiobooks I would assume.Other features are that you can set it so that if you tilt the J3 on its side you can browse by album cover, or if you shake the player it will change songs. Both of these features work fine, but I personally don't care for them.~Videos~Being able to watch videos and TV shows I have downloaded is another big reason why I picked the J3. The video support and playback on the device is great, and the picture quality of the AMOLED screen is fantastic. I now find myself watching videos on the bus in the morning rather than listening to music. I also haven't run into any issues with supported formats, it has played everything I've thrown at it without a hitch.The video player does support bookmarks and will also automatically remember where you left off. This is great since when I'm on the bus I normally lose track of time and quickly exit to the main menu to turn the music back on when I realize I'm at my stop.There is also support for subtitles, which I haven't tried yet. They need to be in the SMI format for some reason though, rather than more popular SRT files.~Speaker~The speaker is pretty standard for a device this size. Doesn't sound great, but will do if you want to show a video to some friends or watch a movie with someone else. I personally use a headphone splitting cable when my fiancé and I watch a show on it at school though.~User Interface~The opinions of the UI on the device seem to vary from person to person. There are 3 different UIs on the device that you can change to and from at any point. One is entirely icon based, the second is a text based list with no icons (though not as dull as it sounds), and the third is icon and widget based. I personally like all of the default UIs, and I'm not sure why some people complain. Another cool thing is that user made UIs are also available, and they work quite well. The website iAudiophile.net is where most of these can be found, along with some flash games that also work on the J3. I recommend the Chakra UI; it's what I have been using since I found it. The touchscreen is capacitive, so you have to use your finger, which in my experience is very responsive and accurate. The tactile buttons are also a plus, there are Power/Hold, Play/Pause, Volume, and FF/RR buttons along the side of the device.While booting up the J3 scans the internal storage and memory card for all supported files, and adds them to the library. This actually works very well and is quite quick. Average startup is only a few seconds, and the longest I've experienced was 15 seconds when I first loaded all of my music and a few videos onto it.~Radio~The FM radio works fairly well. Like most devices you need to have headphones plugged in to get any reception, this means you can't use the speaker to listen to the radio. Although, I have occasionally had it work without anything plugged in. You can have up to 24 saved stations on the device, and even record directly off the radio. Another nice feature is that your equalizer settings all work with the radio as well, something that not every player supports.Just like the music player the radio will keep playing if you exit out to the main menu, which is kind of nice.~Photos~Photos work well from what I have tried. Zooming in looks pretty bad however, as it just uses the smaller version of the image, so it looks quite pixelated. You can set any picture to your wallpaper, though I recommend resizing it on a computer to 480x272 first, otherwise it can look a little weird.~Flash~Flash seems like a nice feature for the J3, but there are a few drawbacks that bring it down. First off is that only Flash 7 objects are supported, anything based off of a newer flash version won't run. Second is that most things need to be resized for the J3's screen, so you can't just download any flash object and throw it on thinking it will work. Then of course is the fact that the J3 is not the most powerful device in the world, so even if you get a flash object working, it might be pretty slow, to the point where it's unusable sometimes.Of course this doesn't mean that flash is useless on the J3. There are a handful of games that do work, or have already been converted to work on the J3. And it gives the ability for other user made apps to be developed for the J3, like the event manager that comes with the user made Chakra UI.~Other Apps~The calculator, notepad, typist, and stopwatch functions all work fairly well. I don`t see tons of use in them but it doesn't hurt to have them there.The Documents reader on the other hand could be quite useful for some people. It is just a basic text reader, but it does work quite well, and gives you control over the color of the background, as well as letting you control the size of the text.There is another App called Comix on the device, the idea is that you can read scans of comic books on the go. It only supports JPEG files though, and I think there would be too much scrolling around to make this enjoyable. I haven't tried this feature, and I probably never will.~Recording~Microphone recording works as I would have expected, the microphone picks up voices easily and the quality isn't terrible. However, I did experience a lot of noise from my hand rubbing on the device, or when my headphones were plugged in. This noise was very audible during the playback of the recording.You can adjust the recording bitrates all the way up to 256kpbs. I haven't tried FM recording or Line-In recording yet.~Battery~Battery life is very long for music and videos. I haven't tested the battery fully, though, I have been using it frequently every day for over a week and only charged it three times. Charge time itself is pretty quick, using a generic USB-AC adapter it takes less than a few hours to fully charge, and only slightly longer through a computer's USB port.~MicroSD~MicroSD support works great, for audio and video it automatically merges the files on the card with those on the player in the normal playlist, or you can separate them by browsing to the specific folders.~MSC Transfer~MSC is the default transfer mode on the J3. And I personally feel it should be a requirement for any device that can be connected to a computer. This is your standard browse through files/folders and copy/paste, just like a USB memory stick; simple, easy, and it just plain works. Transfer speeds are fairly standard, I have seen faster, although, it`s not slow enough to complain about.~MTP Transfer~I haven't use MTP mode, and don't plan on it. This is where you have to use software like Windows Media Player to sync songs and videos onto the device. I have heard this breaks all embedded album art, takes forever to transfer stuff, and just plain sucks with the J3. My advice is don't use MTP mode, but I would suggest that even if it worked perfectly, MSC mode is just so much better.~Hardware~The player is nice and small, easily fits in a pocket and doesn't weigh you down. The glass on the screen is Gorilla Glass, known for being very tough and scratch resistant. The device itself feels fairly solid, like it should last a decent while.The ports for the MicroSD card and the USB cord are under a little plastic flap on the bottom. This flap is kind of annoying at times and you need a finger nail to get it open. I've found it doesn't stick as much as when I first got the device though.In the package you get a USB cord, a disc with Windows 98 drivers (really, who needs this anymore?), and a quick start guide that doesn't tell you much at all about what the J3 can do. The USB cord is considered proprietary here, but it is the standard in Korea, so you may find some other players using it.

Comment:
I got this to replace my beloved Cowon D2 which got dropped in the toilet (don't ask). True to Cowon's rep the sound quality is UNBELIEVABLE with good ear buds, and it plays just about any format (screw you, Apple). The Amoled screen is brilliant - easily viewable from sharp angles. It WILL play h.264-encoded video files, but I could only use SUPER with very specific settings to encode (.avi container with MP3 Audio). Handbrake files do not work, as far as I can tell. XVid, DivX and WMV files work great as advertised.My only gripes are minor. One is that it seems like the device is built upside down, with the on/off and volume controls at the bottom of the device. It seems easier to me to use the TOP buttons while palming the device. It felt slippery so I had to use two hands to adjust the volume or use the power button, especially before I got a silicone case. It comes with a non-universal charging/USB cable and no charger is included. The D2 was nice in that any old USB cable would do the job. The menu system isn't all that intuitive, and it's difficult to manipulate the scroll bar on the edge of the screen without tagging a menu item with my fat finger, especially with the silicone case on. Finally, it only takes a MicroSD card, Unlike the D2 which took a standard. I threw in a cheap 8Gig SanDisk card from Costco and it works fine. Hopefully the price will come down on the larger capacity MicroSD cards soon.I suspect that most of my issues with the J3 compared to the D2 are due to the newer device's thinner ergos, but overall I am very pleased. My focus is primarily sound quality. I don't need Wi-Fi, and the great video is just bonus.

Comment:
This is really one of the best PMPs you can get out in the market right now. I've drop ped this more times than anyone should ever drop  a device like this yet there is absolutely no damage.At first the battery indicator won't read properly but after a charge or two it'll show an accurate reading (although only shows 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%).The product is on the expensive side but is really worth it if you value audio quality and video quality as well. The recording of the built-in mic also blew me away as I really didn't expect the quality that it is capable of.Don't expect to be playing many games though as the CPU is quite weak in order to lengthen the battery life, but there is still a large number of flash games and utilities out there that this runs just fine. Anythingbutipod and iAudiophile have a lot of J3 users who're willing to help you out along with quite a long list of flash games and utilities that function on the J3.