MP3 Players Review

COWON Q5W 60GB Dark Navy

Customer Reviews

Cowon Q5W almost hits mark

I've had the q5w 60gb model for about 2 months and overall I am very pleased with it's performance. The only drawback was the fact that it does not play AAC music files, but adding Coreplayer took care of that. Wifi works well, I can go approximately 90 feet from my linksys 54gs router without any slow web pages or disconnect issues. Audio is awesome, even using Coreplayer instead of the built in one. Video looks fantastic on the 5" screen. Battery life could be better, but I get 7 hours on audio and 5 on video. A bigger hard drive would also be a plus, but that can be solved by adding a bigger one. This is my first Cowon product and I would buy from them again.

Great player with some small flaws

I bought this player too, overall it plays the Video & audio in high quality.What is a bit disappointing is that you can't charge the unit via USB but perhaps that will be possible some day by software modify.The wifi area is to small, when I get only a 50% signal from my router I can,t connect to the wlan/internet.What I like too about the player is the Windows CE 5 ( ok Win CE6 would've beenbetter)I found already a lot of applications for the Cowon Q5W.

Best item ever

i have used this Q5W for 2 months and i am 100% satisfied with the item. It has very high-quality video player which is much better than archos 605 and ipod touch. The sound quality is way better than other mp3 players. Wi-fi,,, is not that super as i expected at first, but, you will get used to it. One important thing is that you cannot watch YouTube from internet not because of Active X, but because of so slow motion. If you are youtubing person, Ipod touch would be better choice. Radio is great option in this PMP. Lyric can be written on the songs so that PMP will display the lyric. The most important options on my favorite are the COMIC VIEWER and TEXT VIEWER. As zip files or folders, it can display comic books. With 5" size screen, there is no difficulty in reading them. The text is super that you can feel as you are actually reading the books. Also, battery life is outstanding. Even though it does not last 7 hours actually, it does last about 6 hours, which is still long enough to do everything outside. Anyway, i recommend this PMP to everybody if you are condisering among other PMPs or MP3s

Best Quality Big Touchscreen Player

The Cowon Q5 is quite simply the best big touchscreen player for quality video. It is 5" measured diagonally, and the larger size makes videos vibrant and reduces eye strain. While touchscreen players have an inherently grainy screen, the Q5 somehow eliminates most of the graininess that plagues other touchscreen players (such as the Archos 705) and provides great clarity, contrast and detail when watching videos. And the audio quality is stellar (consitent with most other Cowon players). Music sounds so much better than on iPods, Zunes or other music players. Detail, soundstage, and stereo separation are all exemplary on this player. You can also customize your music with some of the best effects and equalizer settings available on any player. Much has been written here and in the press about the UI and the use of Windows CE 5.0 as a base program for the Q5. While some of these complaints are legitimate, most of the complaints have been resolved through firmware upgrades (the last time I counted there were five upgrades in a very short period. The most recent firmware upgrade, 1.47, was just released a few days ago.) As a result of these upgrades, the UI is no longer sluggish, the wifi browser is much more user-friendly and there is no stutter in the playing of videos. It has been said that Cowon makes some of the best hardware and only mediocre software. This is usually true at the inception of a product, but Cowon does regularly upgrade its software to address problems identified in its forums. I did not award the Q5 five stars because it does have some shortcomings that have yet to be resolved. There is no pan and scan feature as in the A3 to adjust the size of videos to the screen. (The Q5 has adjustments for the aspect ratio, but these adjustments are not always satisfactory.) Music is not recognized by ID tags, and all songs cannot be played randomly, but random playing is limited to folders at this time. There are white lights that shine mostly from the bottom of the player which are noticeable during dark scenes. (Some users are bothered by this and others are not.) The flash player is outdated, and people generally have trouble playing youtube videos without some hesitation or audio/video sync problems. However, based on Cowon's history of firmware upgrades, some of these problems will certainly be solved, while others are not significant enough to impair my enjoyment of this player. Above all, if you value the highest quality video and audio playback, you will enjoy this player.

Good media player

I purchased this product few weekes ago. It is a great product with tons of features and possibilities. It needs some improvements but overall i'm pleased with it. Pros: -great screen quality and resolution. -great audio and video codec support. -sensitive radio. -very functional internet browser. -can read excel, word, powerpoint or pdf files. Cons: -crapy wireless module. You have to stay close to the wireless router (up to 15/20 feet) to be functional. I wasn't able to make it work from one room to another in my apartment. -need a lot of improvements on user interface functionality. -only headset profile over bluetooth. -can't record from radio. -week build in microphone during recording. -can't play VOB video files.

Keyword : cowon