Hardware Review: Cowon S9 Media Player
Posted: 25 Jul 2009, 15:50
Back in the good old days I advocated a player by Samsung with a long name made primarily of numbers and consonants. I said that it was a good alternative to an iPod, for people who don't want to be labeled "trendy fags".
In other words, if you're one of those people (like me) who don't want to have the exact same thing everyone else does, and never wore those black pants with the two white stripes up the side when they were in style, this would be a good player for you.
It was a decent player, but TBH, it does not stand up in terms of features to a modern iPod.
But recently, a true iPod-killer has arrived on the scene from renowned PMP (portable media player) maker Cowon, which they call the S9. Let me tell you, this thing makes iPods, Zunes, and Zens look like toys.
Featuring a large, goregous AMOLED screen, and available in capacities up to 32 gb (typically for $100 or so less than the equivalent-sized iPod Touch), this player is basically the culmination of mankind's efforts to put large amounts music in their pocket.
From the main screen you have access to your onboard music, videos, AM/FM tuner, pictures, flash apps, and settings. Cowon is legendary among portable music enthusiasts as having incredibly good sound output quality, and the S9 is at the top of its game when playing music. The music is absolutely distortion-free you don't hear any hiss, beeps, bops, or boops as it does its thing.
One major complaint people have with the iPod Touch is that absolutely everything is touch-based, which Cowon thankfully took into account. The most important functions - volume, track skip, power, hold, play, and pause, all have hardware buttons on the top and bottom of the unit.
Most everything on the S9 can be tweaked in some way. If you have a hard time selecting items from the touch menu, you can adjust the font size freely. You can skip tracks by shaking the S9 one way or the other, or if you don't like that feature, turn it off. Backlight brightness, sleep time, and pretty much everything else you can imagine is customizable in one way or another. You can also download custom skins that replace the entire UI, or even make your own.
The S9 also features an impressive array of custom sound effects to make your music sound great on any device. I personally use the Headphone 2 setting, which makes up for my not owning the greatest headphones on the market by adding bass and correcting for common headphone weaknesses. It also makes it sound great in my car, which has CRAPPY speakers only a tone-deaf mother could love. If none of the preset sound effects suit you, you can make custom settings by tweaking the equalizer, bass boost, and other effects.
By this point, I imagine most of you are saying "SOLD!"... but I'm just getting started!
The video mode is outstanding. The S9 has built-in (currently) unofficial support for H.264 video, as well as official support for XviD. On a 16gb S9 you can fit approximately 50 hours of top-quality video. The Cowon S9 employs cutting-edge AMOLED screen technology which Sony also uses in its latest walkman, and Microsoft will be using the same or a very similar panel in their Zune HD later this year.
AMOLED basically means that each pixel produces its own light. There is no backlight, which means great things for battery life, but by far more imporant is that there is unparalleled contrast on this device, better than a CRT display. You can have absolute black right next to absolute white and there is no bleeding or problems of screen uniformity. In North America, it would not be an exaggeration to say that this is literally the best-looking display money can buy currently.
It also has superior off-angle viewing to anything you've seen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b64SKiLc80o
Protecting your goregous AMOLED display is a thin sheet of... plastic? No, glass. And not just any glass, this is Corning's state-of-the-art "Gorilla Glass". You will have an extremely hard time scratching this display - users have reported that razor blades won't even touch it. It's also extraordinarily flexible for glass. See how it handles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syPOPmky ... re=related
Finally, one more point: the battery life. The battery is rated at 55 hours for audio, 11 hours for video.
The Cowon S9 is available in specialty store in North America, I recommend it strongly.
Various Youtube S9 videos:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... type=&aq=f
edit: One more thing, the S9 allows you to use DRAG+DROP FILE MANAGEMENT. You know, where you don't have to use some asinine "sync" program in order to put anything on it?
In other words, if you're one of those people (like me) who don't want to have the exact same thing everyone else does, and never wore those black pants with the two white stripes up the side when they were in style, this would be a good player for you.
It was a decent player, but TBH, it does not stand up in terms of features to a modern iPod.
But recently, a true iPod-killer has arrived on the scene from renowned PMP (portable media player) maker Cowon, which they call the S9. Let me tell you, this thing makes iPods, Zunes, and Zens look like toys.
Featuring a large, goregous AMOLED screen, and available in capacities up to 32 gb (typically for $100 or so less than the equivalent-sized iPod Touch), this player is basically the culmination of mankind's efforts to put large amounts music in their pocket.
From the main screen you have access to your onboard music, videos, AM/FM tuner, pictures, flash apps, and settings. Cowon is legendary among portable music enthusiasts as having incredibly good sound output quality, and the S9 is at the top of its game when playing music. The music is absolutely distortion-free you don't hear any hiss, beeps, bops, or boops as it does its thing.
One major complaint people have with the iPod Touch is that absolutely everything is touch-based, which Cowon thankfully took into account. The most important functions - volume, track skip, power, hold, play, and pause, all have hardware buttons on the top and bottom of the unit.
Most everything on the S9 can be tweaked in some way. If you have a hard time selecting items from the touch menu, you can adjust the font size freely. You can skip tracks by shaking the S9 one way or the other, or if you don't like that feature, turn it off. Backlight brightness, sleep time, and pretty much everything else you can imagine is customizable in one way or another. You can also download custom skins that replace the entire UI, or even make your own.
The S9 also features an impressive array of custom sound effects to make your music sound great on any device. I personally use the Headphone 2 setting, which makes up for my not owning the greatest headphones on the market by adding bass and correcting for common headphone weaknesses. It also makes it sound great in my car, which has CRAPPY speakers only a tone-deaf mother could love. If none of the preset sound effects suit you, you can make custom settings by tweaking the equalizer, bass boost, and other effects.
By this point, I imagine most of you are saying "SOLD!"... but I'm just getting started!
The video mode is outstanding. The S9 has built-in (currently) unofficial support for H.264 video, as well as official support for XviD. On a 16gb S9 you can fit approximately 50 hours of top-quality video. The Cowon S9 employs cutting-edge AMOLED screen technology which Sony also uses in its latest walkman, and Microsoft will be using the same or a very similar panel in their Zune HD later this year.
AMOLED basically means that each pixel produces its own light. There is no backlight, which means great things for battery life, but by far more imporant is that there is unparalleled contrast on this device, better than a CRT display. You can have absolute black right next to absolute white and there is no bleeding or problems of screen uniformity. In North America, it would not be an exaggeration to say that this is literally the best-looking display money can buy currently.
It also has superior off-angle viewing to anything you've seen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b64SKiLc80o
Protecting your goregous AMOLED display is a thin sheet of... plastic? No, glass. And not just any glass, this is Corning's state-of-the-art "Gorilla Glass". You will have an extremely hard time scratching this display - users have reported that razor blades won't even touch it. It's also extraordinarily flexible for glass. See how it handles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syPOPmky ... re=related
Finally, one more point: the battery life. The battery is rated at 55 hours for audio, 11 hours for video.
The Cowon S9 is available in specialty store in North America, I recommend it strongly.
Various Youtube S9 videos:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... type=&aq=f
edit: One more thing, the S9 allows you to use DRAG+DROP FILE MANAGEMENT. You know, where you don't have to use some asinine "sync" program in order to put anything on it?
