Cowon's L2: the latest all media player with GPS

Korea sure loves 'em some convergence, and few homegrowns can top Cowon when it comes to packing audio, video, SatNav, and mobile TV into a single sleek device. No suprise then to find Cowon's L2 packing enough acronyms to choke a middle-manager: FM radio, DMB TV, 7-inch TFT LCD with PIP, SiRF Star III GPS, and support for JPG, BMP, PNG, MP3, WAV, ASF, WMA, MPEG-4 media stored in the 2GB of built-in storage or SD card expansion. Unfortunately, it's only capable of a weak sauce 432 × 240 pixel resolution scattered across that big 7-inch display. Hey, what were you expecting, 1080p -- oh, right. Fully configured for ₩299,000 or about $322 when these hit K-town on June 5th.

[Via Akihabara News]

[ET @ Jun 1st 2007 10:22AM]

$3xx for a 7" gps is quite cheap.

[ET @ Jun 1st 2007 10:24AM]

Does it use SiRF Star III?

[Darnell @ Jun 1st 2007 11:33AM]

akk. That's a pitiful resolution for a 7" screen.

[Craig Tucker @ Jun 1st 2007 11:55AM]

Gah, 800x480 resolution, more storage, an SDK, and promise of good map upgrades and I would snatch this up in a second, even at double the price.

[wsjchoi @ Jun 1st 2007 12:27PM]

Craig Tucker

you Cowon hating whore, a Tomtom 510 retails 400 dollars, has a tiny screen and literally looks like a technology that was made 5 years ago and the specs really suck
This unit is sweet and has an awesome price, go look for 7 inch screen navigation systems by other companies, most of them (with brand names) cost at least 700+ and they still suck
some units which include hard-drives and better whatever you were bitching about cost all above a 1000

again, stop being a whore that hates everything that comes out on the market, this is a sweet product for the best price.

[Craig Tucker @ Jun 1st 2007 12:40PM]

Wow, someone is cranky this morning. Never said it was bad for the price, just doesnt fit *my* needs. I already have 800x480 7" touch screen in my car running on a mini-itx platform (so I am NOT comparing to TomTom, Im comparing to CarPC solutions). This is a good unit for entry level, but I'm just echoing the specs that other CarPC users expect if this were to compete in said market. So yes, I will admit, this is a good unit to compete with TomTom, but I would never consider buying any of those standalones myself. Cowon is very close (the closest of any company I've seen) to come out with a product for my needs, and it seems like they could do it by just upgrading this unit a bit.

[Nobuyuki Idei @ Jun 1st 2007 12:10PM]

Too bad they still don't support cue sheets in FLAC.

[wsjchoi @ Jun 1st 2007 12:46PM]

why would you comment on it on the first place?
this product is something that would compete with portable GPS models already out there

and it's not morning here, don't assume that everyone lives in the US moron.

[Sindre Strandum @ Jun 1st 2007 2:08PM]

432 x 240 = 1,8:1 = 5,4:3 = 16,2:9 aka a little bit wider than 16:9..
How come?

In comparison:
COWON L2: 432 x 240 @ 7"
Apple iPhone: 480 x 320 @ 3,5"
Garmin Nüvi 660: 480 x 272 @ 4,3"
Meizu M8: 720 x 480 @ 3,3"

[ShadowVlican @ Jun 4th 2007 9:13PM]

weak sauce is the right term for such a low resolution large size display