Product Description

The Best Sounding MP3 Player Ever? Thank Golden Ears 50% Bodyguard Leather Case. Just add it to your order at the bottom! The Cowon S9 is here... If you've been sleeping under a stone you may have missed our excitement about the latest player to arrive from the masters of quality - Cowon. The S9 has teased us over the last year or so with the promise of the Cowon player we always wanted but never dared hope would turn out as well as we could imagine. Well we're astounded to say it's better than we could have ever hoped for! The main points to focus on are the new BBE+ sound architecture the amazing AMOLED widescreen display full Bluetooth support and the superb new user interface. As it's the first thing that'll strike you when using the S9 let's take a look at the interface first: Zoom UI: This is a real step forward for Cowon's players which have had a reputation for being slightly complex to use. With this new totally touch screen user interface Cowon have kept the depth of control possible with previous players but made day-to-day operation simplicity itself! Your main functions are represented by a set of simple icons on the main screen and on entering any of these options you're presented with a simple list of track or videos or photos. Text too small? Use the zoom bar and make it bigger. Not sure what a certain video file is? A looping thumbnail shows some footage from it right there on the menu. And again you can zoom in. It doesn't stop there - the S9 features G sensor technology so it knows which way up it's being held. So you can turn it on it's side and scroll through a list of album covers instead of a textual track list. Watching a movie it doesn't matter what way up you hold it the S9 will re-format the file to display the right way up and as big as possible on the 3.3 inch - 480 x 272 pixel AMOLED screen. So it's easy and cool to use what about the nuts & bolts - is it technically any good? Audio Normally on a player with such a ground-breaking

Product Details

• Brand: Cowon
• Model: S9-8GB
• Dimensions: 5.12" h x 5.91" w x 3.15" l, .66 pounds
• Display size: 3.3

Features

• Display - 16 million colours 3.3 16:9 Wide AMOLED 480x272 Features Capacitive touchscreen interface
• Audio Channel - Stereo Frequency range 20Hz ~ 20KHz Max output Stereo Left 29mW + Right 29mW (16 Ohm earphones) S/N ratio 95dB
• Battery - Built-in rechargeable lithium polymer battery Battery charging USB : About 5 Hours ( under condition of 5V/500mA or higher) USB Power Adapter* : About 3 Hours ( under condition of 5V/1.0 A or higher)
• Capacity - Flash memory 4GB/8GB/16GB FAT32 file system**
• USB interface USB device USB 2.0 High Speed

Customer Reviews

Cowon S9. My Review
Cowon is famous for it's media players. Latest in the line is this beautiful S9 Curve. The first thing I look for when I get a new player is the latest firmware. Cowon is on the ball. Version 2.05 came out before mine arrived, and I ordered mine from Jetmall.net the first day they were available in the U.S.. Version 2.06 came out 12/24. We're already up to 2.30 and the S9 just keeps getting better. I've always thought Cowon's players were bulky and not very practical or portable. The S9 changes the rules. Clearly Cowon has noticed that beautiful, innovative looks can help sell players.

What they didn't do was forget it's a media player. Music is best is class. Video is amazing shown on it's 3.3" AMOLED widescreen. Photos follow suite. If you're old enough to need reading glasses the Zoom feature makes apps with text easier to read/see with a simple slide of your finger. File format support is broad. You can drag and drop media directly onto the S9, use Windows Media Player, or use the Jetaudio app that comes included to put media on it.

Now with 32gb capacity you'll have room for movies and photos worth watching on that beautiful screen. Get the inexpensive video output cable and serve up movies to your TV. You'll get up to 50 hours music and 10 hours video playback with one battery charge. Don't forget FLASH game/app support, FM radio with recording, voice recording, and Bluetooth for wireless headphones. There is no Wifi or what it brings, but it's also $100 less than the iPod Touch of the same memory capacity.

Be sure and keep the firmware updated. Cowon is sending updates out each month, and each one has brought significant improvement. Best touchscreen player of 2009 I'll predict.

Great mp3 player for advanced users
Pros:
Excellent Sound Quality
Amazing OLED screen
Infinity tweakable interface
Great codec support
Frequent firmware updates and new features provided by Cowon

Cons:
Screen difficult to read in bright direct sunlight
Default user interface can be a bit un-intuitive

Conclusion:
This is a great player. The screen is absolutely great, except in direct sunlight, which makes it pretty much unreadable. The price is great for the capacity, and the fact that you can run different user interfaces (UI) means that if you don't like the way it is by default (which isn't bad), you can just download one that you like. If you know how to program flash, you can make your own, because Cowon makes it really easy.

The greatest thing is that Cowon is constantly updating the firmware, about once a month. Each one brings new features, such as the latest (as of late July 2009) was gapless playback for many music formats. Just make sure that you rip your music properly.

The S9 has great video format support, including Xvid, DivX, and WMV. The videos look great on the screen, and playback is smooth.

It supports both MSC (Mass storage, like a flash drive) and MTP (media transfer protocol, use Windows Media Player or equivalent to sync), so you can get the best of both worlds.

It's really a good player if you want a nice looking, touchscreen player,and you are moderately good with computers, but you don't want Wi-Fi and tons of other features you may not use. My thinking was that I would rather have something that does a few things really well, like the S9, rather than something that stretches itself too thin, like an unnamed Apple product.

Stellar MP3 player!
Update: I have owned the S9 for a few weeks now. Here are my thoughts...

Great form factor. Battery life is amazing -- the unit can go about 2 weeks before the battery runs low. Stellar audio quality. The UI has it's quirks -- navigation for common tasks can require a few presses, but it's still a lot better than other units I've owned. I've been using Media Monkey to manage my music library and sync with the S9, and this has proved to be a winning combination. I splurged and purchased the Pro version. It will take me some time to fix the tags in my MP3 files, but Media Monkey does a pretty good job at most library management that I need, and I have a lot of music. I am very happy with this player, and would still give it 5 stars.

Original review:
This is the 3rd MP3 player that I have owned. My first was an iRiver HP-120, which was absolutely awesome, but was getting a little technologically dated. I then made the mistake of buying a Zune 120 GB. The capacity, build quality, and form factor were awesome, but the walled garden of MS's terrible software eventually led me elsewhere. Furthermore, the sound quality was just OK (and no EQ settings!), and the battery life was way overstated by MS. The online 'social' was useless to me -- I'm a grown adult, and I own a vast music collection that I started when I was a kid. I purchased a Cowon i6 for my wife about 2 years ago, and she still loves and uses it everyday -- so I thought I would give the S9 a try. I read some encouraging reviews of it, and it's slim pickin's these days for a true MP3 player not aimed at the average teenager. I received it this morning, and let me tell you, this little device is awesome. The sound quality is truly impressive, as others have reported, which is one attribute that Cowon players are known for. The screen is also amazing -- the OLED technology really shows off it's stuff on this thing. The touch screen is actually quite nice, and responds well. Those with small or large fingers shouldn't have a problem here. The dedicated volume, track, play/pause buttons are welcome, and the build quality is high. The selection of materials, the fit in the hand, and the size and weight are perfect. I also purchased a Cowon leather case for mine, which fits like a glove, while allowing full access to all of the important bits. I'm still learning the UI and the various features, but it seems like almost every aspect of the device can be customized. The UI is great, fairly easy to navigate, and the device responds quickly. I can't comment on the battery life yet, but I'm sure that it will be as advertised. The unit charged initially for 2.5 hours on AC when unboxed, and I upgraded to the latest firmware before starting to use it.

In short, this MP3 player looks like a keeper. I feel like an idiot for not buying it sooner. I will post an update to this review as I continue to become familiar with it, but so far, this looks like the one for me. Check one out for yourself -- I think you'll agree.