Cowon's N2, successor to the A2 throne
It's been a hell of a long time since Cowon launched its Engadget Award-winning A2, but we freaking finally have a worthy successor to their flagship media player, and like so many other Korean-built devices it's no slouch when it comes features. Now Windows CE 5-based, the Cowon N2 features a friggin' massive 7-inch 480 x 234 display (with a 500:1 contrast ratio, and 420cd/m² brightness), 500MHz AMD Alchemy processor, 128MB DDR2 SDRAM, 32MB Flash memory, built in SiRFStarIII GPS, DMB video, dual SD slots (à la the Tapwave Zodiac), USB On-The-Go, 4W stereo speakers, AV and camera ins, FM transmitter, IR, and the usual extensive codec support (MP3, WMA, Ogg, ASF, AVI, WMV, DivX 3/4/5, XviD, MPEG-4, video up to 720 x 480 / 30fps). You're not going to get all this without sacrificing space and weight, though; the N2 weighs in at a hefty 540 grams (1.2 pounds), and eats up 191 x 120 x 26mm (7.5 x 4.7 x 1 inches) -- nowhere near the smallest overachieving media player around. What's worse, it still doesn't appear to support raw MPEG-2 / VOB, nor H.264 -- which is a bummer, since if any media player should, it is this one -- but something tells us those brave enough to suffer the inevitable 2nd mortgage required to own one of these won't be left in the lurch. (Click on for some more pics!)
[Thanks, Daiken]
