Cowon's 32GB S9 PMP goes on sale in America
By Darren Murph 
posted May 3rd 2009 4:44AM
posted May 3rd 2009 4:44AM
[Via PMP Today]
posted May 3rd 2009 4:44AM
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Nice...
But I'll wait for the Zune HD thank you.
The Zune HD probably won't have divx/xvid support which imo is more important than H264 stuff
but eh.
Windows 7 has built-in DivX/XviD support so you never know.
Zune might be an alternative......but without drag-n-drop = forgetaboutit
Cowon's newer players and even my 6 year old A2 out-perform all players
in that class of PMP's.
And for goodness sake....all the wasted space taken up bout the fruity player.
[and fruity player with the inferior phone addon] The iPhoney does not come
close in regards to overall video/audio quality. Jeeeesus, even the WinMo devices
have superior video/audio. An inferior phone platform with an even worse set
of audio/video features places the Iphoney dead last.
I've seen this on amazon for a while now... just saying.
First. I think.
Dang. It never always works out. Oh well.
Don't worry I believe you, because if you click on where it says 2 new amazon is one of the 2 you can buy from.
That made no sense
I agree with you. The price/features ratio of this product is too high AND if you really care about sound quality get a Sony walkman for a much cheaper price. The ipod touch stands out because of the features it offers, cool design and mass likability. I say if you think the touch is overpriced then either start hinting for deals on one or get a refurbished unit from apple.
For that price, I wouldn't mind getting that then a... Fruit MP3.
Actually sounds rather tempting even though i already own the 16GB version :P. Wanted more space since it was found out that the S9 does in fact support H.264.
And the screen on the S9 is much brighter, with better viewing angles and on top of that you've get a completely customizable flash UCI. Depends on what you use your mp3 player for, people who want a do-it-all but not particularly great at anything will opt for the iTouch. Those who only use their player for listening to music/watching video and want it to be the best at that will go for something from Cowon/Samsung/Sony.
@rita: Not everyone cares about codecs? So you don't care how your music sounds? Then why pay for a $230 and not a cassette player?
Idiot
That was supposed to be for the comment thread below. Damn Engadget
Are you kidding me who would buy this piece of crap!?
Just get an Itouch... common sense.
I agree..my Touch works great..I keep looking at these other manufactures units and wouldnt mind trying something else but in the end i know my Touch is just going to work like its suppose to.
totally. since the iTouch has inferior codec support and sound quality, that makes PERFECT sense.
Step 1: Buy real headphones
Step 2: Plug them into your iPod Touch
Step 3: Plug them into a Cowan, or most any other player on the market
Step 4: Cringe at the thought plugging those headphones back into the iPod.
5.???????????
6.Profit!!!
(you actually DO profit because the other brand of PMP will most likely be cheaper than the iPod)
Does the Touch play my lossless FLAC files? No? Ah, well, maybe that's why we need Cowon.
lol..downrank all you want...not everybody cares about Codecs or Flac files. Go into your job tomorrow and ask everyone about both those terms and see if they even know what they are....You can rag on Apple/Itunes all you want. It might be vanilla but it basically works out of the box and gives the user a seamless experience...and thats what i want.
seriously? you want us to buy an inferior overhyped crippled piece of crap ??
no thanks i live in the real world
For the masses, rita's got a point...most people don't care about things like lossless codecs (at least not yet). But world of Engadget commenters is a very different place.
@rita: So basically Mac users don't give a shit about the actual music experience (you know, audio quality), they just want something pretty to look at?
Fucking idiot
@TheWalrus: That applies to Mac *and* PC users. The masses care about bad vs. good audio quality, but not so much about good vs. very good, especially if they're using mediocre headphones or don't have sensitive ears. Once something is "good enough," then the rest comes down to price, marketing, and prettiness.
@Puh: I have never seen someone argue "good enough" for the Zune. I could be wrong
@The Walrus: That's why I said that the rest comes down to price, marketing, and prettiness (with "marketing" printed in a nice big font).
Too bad pimpimg is its only trick.
Its funny you say it like a bad thing, when the one thing it does, it does well, which is hard to say for many players.
I'm using ipod touch atm and its audio quality is less than average to be honest compared to my old sony walkman however its safari browser is million time better than any other browser i saw on portable devices
either way i'm selling it once samsung release Omnia HD (FLAC support baby with 5.1 audio with headphones~)
Opera Mobile.
That is all I have to say.
Maybe i used very old version of opera mobile then (last one i used when in early 2007 i believe and wasnt as good as safari), care to show me how smooth the new opera compared to the latest safari on the ipod touchs? and can i use it on samsung omnia HD when it came out?
Opera Mobile is really good.
What's more you'll have Fennec and skyfire too so you're coice to make but there are alternatives.
Are you positive about the whole Samsung Omnia HD flac support ?
Pretty nice.. need to wait and see what the new iphone has to offer first tho ;)
S9 is nice player. And it's AMOLED Display is awesome.
I'd buy it today if it had an expansion slot...
Ditto -- with the caveat the expansion slot integrates into the whole library. The S9 spanks my Creative Zen... but I've had a 32GB Zen for over a year and I need more space, and its expansion slot is a joke. I'll upgrade when we see 64GB flash players.
Where's the WI-FI on this thing?
Why the hell would anyone pay 300 bucks for an MP3 player without WI-FI when the IPOD Touch has one????
Re: most of these comments: If you've ever heard one, you would understand.
Some of us buy MP3 players for such things as, you know, listening to music.
I personally HATE HATE HATE iTunes, and would prefer a player that doesn't lock me into that abomination of a software. That, and I'd much rather sort by folders, thankyouverymuch.
This player's strength and purpose is in the sound quality. If you care about good sound, this player is not only worth the price for it's sound, it would be worth more given that there aren't any competing options out there can offer this experience.
If I want mobile browsing I would use an iPhone or Android Phone or the Palm Pre. I wouldn't expect any of those to be my music player though. While I guess it's nice that they can play music, they do it terribly and don't offer the codecs I want. Also, I'm probably going to use a good amount of storage space on a phone like that for applications and games and emails and documents and everything else one can use them for, which will always leave me with that much less space less space for my music.
If you don't care about music that much, an iPod Touch, iPhone, or similar phone is probably just fine. If you do care about music though, it's more than worth having a separate device to do it correctly. I now not everyone can afford that, or afford any such device, but that doesn't mean there isn't good reason not to want one, even without wifi.
How about watching music videos on Youtube?????
CAN'T do it on this thing!!!!
really? I didn't know people who were buying a high end PMP cared about playing trashy compressed vids over wifi.
The day youtube makes watchable video I'll try them on my S9...
Right now giving a amoled screen to a youtube video is like feeding marmelade to a pig..
Why are people so keen on defending the Ipod? I do not understand it at all considering how expensive it is and the horrible battery life. I mean we are talking about a device that we mainly use to listen to music with right? Is getting porn on your ipod touch that important?
I guess surfing the web on the touch is cool and the games aren't too bad but in the end the player only last like 4 hours of heavy usage. I have used an ipod touch and i was left with a music less day after 4 hours of use and a 30 minute play of games! I was stuck in school for the next 5 hours without music!! It was torture! I couldn't even get my porn fix!
Can't wait for a price drop on the S9. I love how cowon has price drops on all their players after a couple months.
If you don't care about codecs or anything without an "i" in front of it, why even bother posting in here? I have an iPhone, love the browser, hate everything else and the phone. I have a mac and pc, and i hate certain things about both. People should start buying things b/c they like certain features of a product, instead of trying to validate every purchase they make to the whole world. I've been waiting for the 32gb S9 and I'm gonna get it nowwwww!!!
Cowon needs to make a phone, already. I'm really past the point where I want a single purpose gadget taking up space, so come on Cowon, jump on the Android phone bandwagon.
I'd buy one just for the H.264 and Flac support. I bought a Sansa Fuze just for flac and it's card slot.
Since this does not have a card slot I will will skip it. The price is fair, somewhat, but could be cheaper.
I prefer Xvid over H.264 but I prefer H.264's smaller file size and somewhat better video quality, but just not the encoding time! 45 minutes on a Q6600 for one movie is such a pain.
I wanted to buy an X5 but apparently it's not even even sold. Their store has been down forever it seems.
Hopefully someday Apple will allow dragging and dropping using Explorer and maybe FLAC support. I doubt this will ever happen though.
I was able to use Winamp for awhile to copy files, but I don't know if that still works.
Right now the Fuze works for what I need and I can upgrade it with more memory whenever I want.
For all the douche that's so overprotective of their "iCrap," the difference between the sound quality of Apple's mediocre "aac" player and Cowon's audio player is like night and day. Apple is a design company with a few good engineers and marketing people. Cowon is a company made up of audio engineers. Look up BBE.