COWON Q5W-40DN 40GB Dark Navy | List Price: $489.99
Discount Price: $419.99
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Brand: Cowon
Binding: Electronics
Features: - 5¿ Wide LCD, 16 million color, res. 800x480, ultra portable
- Play all your digital entertainment: movies, TV shows, photos and music
- Surf the web, use e-mail and MSN voice-enabled Messenger service with Wi-Fi and connect to Bluetooth-enabled stereo headphones with Bluetooth 2.0 technology
- Touch sensitive interface, FM radio and recorder, voice recorder with internal microphone, built-in stereo speakers, and TV-out supporting component, S-video and composite connections
- Offer an optional GPS navigation package using COWON Navigator cradle equipped with GPS receiver antenna (SirF3 internal), FM transmitter switch for audio playback on vehicle radio
Feature-pack player that needs a better user interface [Posted on 2007-12-07]
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R25Y9C4XLLZ8S4 The Q5W is one feature-pack PMP. I just needs a better user interface to go along with it. You can check out the rest of the review on [...]
Cowon q5w by chauncy [Posted on 2007-12-15]
The specs
5" touchscreen with 16 million colors. Plays a wider variety of audio and video formats than anything else on the market. Wireless. Bluetooth. USB Host. FM radio. Voice recording. Text and photo viewer. Read more at
[...]
So is the Cowon Q5w as impressive as it sounds? Let's see.
Build Quality
The Q5 is hewn from heavy and I mean heavy weight steel. With a 5-inch screen it comes across as big and heavy. It will fit in a jacket pocket but certainly not a jeans pocket. Nor is it meant to. The quality of the build is superb, solid and beautiful in a minimal sort of way. The screen doesn't scratch easily although screen protectors are highly advised.
Software and Interface
It's a touch screen with just buttons for volume and power on the outside rim.
The q5 has two distinct interfaces- Cowon's interface, which is a series of icons on the left side that act as a top menu and a corresponding series of icons on the right side that act as submenus to the selected left side menu.
Dig a little deeper and you'll find that the Cowon interface is built on top on Windows CE- to be specific Windows Embedded CE 5.0- total size about 70mb, total license cost, $[...].
What CE brings to the table is set of core functionality that is far easier than a linux based system to build off. It also allows for a fair amount of user customization.
The Cowon interface has a slight learning curve, not being that intuitive. However once you get used to it, it is peppy and responsive.
The windows interface is, well, windows, so it should be familiar to most. The problem here was that it didn't recognize taps on the touchscreen very well, even after recalibration. When the fw/sw was upgraded to 1.43 this issue vanished. I'll return to this in my conclusion.
The Cowon software has a fair amount of depth to it and a myriad of power-saving/skin options.
Video and Audio Quality
I rip all my music and videos at the close to the highest available quality settings. My music is 256 mp3 or flac. And my videos are at least 480X272. I use quality headphones
In that context, let me say this once. Nothing on the market rivals the Cowon Q5w's sound quality. Nothing rivals its video quality. The sound is wide, punchy and rich. The video, on the device at least, looks like it's HD with no stutter whatsoever.
And that's all I have to say about that!
Other
There's a lot more the q5 does. Wireless and Bluetooth. Web-browsing. TV out. FM radio. WordPad. Text and photo viewer. Flash Player. Audio recording. USB host. Remote Control
The wireless works okay. It is really good at finding networks in range. When its connected to a good strong signal, web browsing works well, the web pages look great. The range itself is okay but not great.
TV-out: The TV out was solid but that's all. Experimentation will be needed here. The q5 outputs rgb and component and, with an adapter, svideo. It outputs a full screen in fairly normal resolution- nowhere near HD. The sound output from the movie I tested was in booming 5.1 surround.
The remote control does its job extremely well.
Audio recording is adequate.
The flash player allows games and browsing of flash-enabled web sites. I browsed several flash-enabled web sites without a hitch.
Photos, as expected, looked great.
I had mixed results with the usb port\ host. It didn't recognize my Canon D450. I was able to plug in my mouse and use it perfectly.
FM radio and Bluetooth were not tested.
Conclusion:
The fact that the touch screen had initial problems has caused several bad/mediocre reviews already. It should have been fixed before it was released. That said, kudos to Cowon for fixing it so quickly. The other factor that `s contributed to the bad reviews is the fact that it's built on Embedded Windows CE and people seem to hate that idea. They think it's bloated and expensive. The truth is it's neither.
The Q5w has a slight learning curve. Does that scare you? Could the UI have been better? Yes. Could linux have been used as the OS? Yes. Does WinCe do what it needs to do for this player? Yes. Are there a few areas that need improvement? Yes. The wireless could have better range. The USB host needs to work with more camera. Is it overpriced? Yes. By about $[...] to $[...]. Although it's already dropped at a couple of places. Quality costs.
So, finally, I pose this question. Does anyone buy PMPs anymore for the quality of their main function? Or is it caché, add-ons, web tie-ins that carry the day?
I don't think this is the right device for your mother and your mother's purse or for your girlfriend who wants lime green to match her earrings. That is, unless your mother/girlfriend loves to be blown away by the quality of Chopin she's listening to or your girlfriend likes to able to pick out every note in Duff's snaking bass line. Or they both dig the near three-dimensional clarity of ships passing overhead in Riddick.
The Cowon q5w has a better build quality than any PMP I've yet to see. The bottom line is that it is a superb, unrivaled video and audio player. Seriously.
There's a gps cradle on the way by Christmas time and an upgrade to the OS that includes an office viewer.
A case and screen protectors are on sale now at jetmall.net.
This item is great. [Posted on 2008-01-05]
The sound quality is great (better than my PC).
Windows CE is a very poor OS, but the Q5 is not designed to be a PDA: it is one of the best PMP ever.
A great device once you know how to use it. [Posted on 2008-01-05]
I did a lot of research on this PMP prior to making my purchase.
We recently brought a Archos 604 for out son. It is a very nice pmp also, but I wanted to really push the envelope as far as what I could get out of a device of equal size.
My biggest worry with purchasing this pmp was that there was not a lot of user reviews on Amazon, and the ones I saw on other websites appeared to be of pre-release models that had not had the bugs worked out yet.
I read and re-read the reviews that were out there, and the more I read the more this appeared to be the device for me even if it has some flaws. I held my breath crossed my fingers and finally took the plung.............
and I so glad I did! This thing is amazing in so many ways. First let me say up front that I am a Techie, it's my job, and hobby.
With that said this pmp is not for everyone, you will have to make some adjustments to it right out of the box such as a firmware and apps update which you can download from the manufactures website.
Long story short if you have the nerves,patients, and skills to deal with this pmp, you will not be disappointed.
The sound quality of everything you put into this thing is improved on play back. I consider my ear to be pretty good, and this player has blown my socks off when playing music that I have had and listened to for a long time on various mp3s and sound systems. I'm hearing sounds in the music that I never knew was there.
I will play just about any type of file you put into it, and play it well.
The UI is not the greatest, but since I have dealt with pocket pc in the past I am use to the adjustments that have to be made to make this work the way that I want.
Others on the web have covered the other specs on this pmp, and I just wanted to add my two cents.
Before closing I want to say that this item arrived quickly, and when I was getting gadget fever I contacted Jetaudio via instant chat on their website they quickly told me the status of my order and the sales person was very polite.
In closing this pmp is not perfect but it is very close.
Just my humble opinion.
Hope this helps others,now back to my Q5W.
An acceptable item, but is it really worth it? [Posted on 2008-05-30]
When I bought the Cowon Q5w, I was excited. I couldn't wait for my wifi and bluetooth enabled pmp that no one else has. My aspirations of an excellent pmp then faded. Sadly but truly, there is no video input where you can record at all (I'm not sure if you can with the GPS cradle in use though). The bluetooth capability is practically useless when the only think that you can use is bluetooth headphones with the device (I at first thought that maybe you could connect to phones and transfer files). Another disappoinment, although minor, is the wifi capability since some times it works, but other times it doesn't. It is also very difficult to find games that are compatible with the windows CE 5.0, so far I haven't found any yet. Another downfall is the heat of the battery that is emitted after long use, or even short use. After 30 minutes of use, the Q5 gets hot very quickly. After 4 hours it was VERY hot, and the battery life is only about 7 hours for video. Another downfall is the size of it. It fits in your pocket, but I guarantee you that you won't be putting this thing in your pocket after you see how hot it gets. This pmp is DEFINITELY not worth the money at all, and should be priced under $400. The only thing that was so good about the q5 was that the video output and audio were so crisp and colorful that it was probably one of the best quality pmp's that I've ever used, not to mention it has a 5 inch touchscreen. All in all, this is a great player if you are on the road a lot or always traveling. If you have heard that this pmp is a gadget warehouse, then you heard wrong. You don't really use the bluetooth or the wifi or the wince 5.0 operating system. The only thing I have used it for is watching movies and playing solitaire. If what you're looking for is a good solid pmp that has better battery life and good video quality, save your money and get a D2, which is so far the best pmp/mp3 player that I have ever used in my life. The Cowon Q5w is not a keeper for the average or even the advanced users.
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