Cowon S9 pales in white

It's hard to beat the chrome and titanium black versions of the Cowon S9 players in terms of aesthetic design. And black is always the best choice to frame its high-contrasting, 3.3-inch AMOLED if you're the type who likes to see the display fade into the device during particularly dark video sequences. Still, choice is good, and white DAPs are trending (again) so why not ceramic white? It's not like the S9's viewable display actually stretches end-to-end like you might assume.

Gallery: Cowon S9 pales in white

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[Via Pocketables]

[tanjim @ Jul 14th 2009 3:58AM]

idk.. something doesnt quite click with the design in white like this.

quick question tho, what would you guys go with if we're talking about best sound quality overall? i always hear sonys are hard to beat, even if they are pricey

[LordFarkward @ Jul 14th 2009 4:31AM]

Cowon's hard to beat. Go for either S9 or D2+, you won't be sorry.

[Gad Get @ Jul 14th 2009 5:04AM]

From what I've heard, the Cowon S9 and the Sony Walkman X-Series are about as good as it gets for a portable device, sound-wise. Other Walkmans, other Cowon devices, Archos devices, iRiver devices, and the Samsung P2, the Sansa Fuze, and Sansa Clip have excellent sound quality too.

In conclusion, shop around, and make sure you know what you want in a device. Then, buy an iPod. Just kidding. ;D

[cletus @ Jul 14th 2009 8:04AM]

If you are comparing to the new sony OLED walkman, and it has the same audio chip as last years NWZ-A7/x series, then the S9 has it beat in sound quality, no question. The sony will still sound very good compared to the ipod. However the Cowon also has the sony beat in battery life, codec support, and customizability. I love my S9 and couldn't recommend it enough.

[Techie @ Jul 14th 2009 11:44AM]

I just bought a Cowon S9 and it's not bad, amazed that it takes AVI =D niceeee although I like the i-Audio 7 better....

[tanjim @ Jul 14th 2009 12:07PM]

@ all

many thanks, I think I'll aim at an s9 next month :)

[vbtrash @ Jul 14th 2009 4:10AM]

my ipod photo conked off a while back and im looking for an upgrade. but since apple has been refreshing their line-up around september, im willing to wait and see what they have in store for us and then make my decision. does anyone have any idea when the next ipod-centric event is?

[Me4u2 @ Jul 14th 2009 4:21AM]

Its freakin' ugly... ipod touch Rocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[silon @ Jul 14th 2009 4:51AM]

Well, this and the ipod touch is two completley different devices. To me, the ipod touch seems like a great internet tablet and gaming console with video and music player, while the S9 is just a music and video player (ofc, its got some flash games... but they mostly sucks) and THAT it does ways better then an iPod IMO.
I like the design too... stylish, a shame the screen doesnt cover the whole front though.

[Tom @ Jul 14th 2009 7:35AM]

Way to be a typical iPod fanboy. Your iPod Touch has nothing on the S9's AMOLED screen and sound quality, customizable flash UCI's, among other things.

[Michael @ Jul 14th 2009 11:55AM]

No iPod comes even close to the sound quality of Cowon DAPs. I firmly believe in function over form, but the S9 looks much nicer to me than the iPod touch. Why would I want a boring looking player with an inferior screen, bad SQ and no FM tuner?

[Bash @ Jul 14th 2009 4:46AM]

idk, something just look off :/

[nowayman @ Jul 14th 2009 5:37AM]

for a first time, a white product looks weird. not that im pro-apple.

[Joseph @ Jul 14th 2009 6:50AM]

check out their feature page:
http://product.cowon.com/product/COWONS9/product_page_1.php

[njen @ Jul 14th 2009 7:39AM]

I am not so sure about this white version, I think they might be trying to tap into the iPod salivating crowd. Btw, I do own an S9 (black), and I simply love it. I have owned many DAP's and PMP's (and researched many more) and I can say without a doubt that the sound and visual quality is top of the line.

But it's not without it's faults too. Gapless for mp3's is missing (but recently added for flac through a firmware upgrade), a wireless connection would be nice (probably never going to happen with this model), and I wish it had a standard micro USB connection (uses a proprietary connection). But for a dedicated photo/music/video device it's awesome.

Oh, and there is now a thriving community growing around this device all coming up with lot's of different UI's, themes and other goodies. I love that the UI is completely customiseable.

[sotec_productions @ Jul 14th 2009 8:51AM]

Samsung P2 has amazing sound quality whether you're pumping it through speakers or headphones. I use it as my truck's system. I have 2 Cerwin Vega 10'', tweets and mids, and the sound quality on the P2 pretty much is the best thing I've ever heard in terms of mp3 players.

I hear that the Meizu M6 is actually better than the P2.

The P2 has an OLED screen that is top knotch, comes in 16gb versions. Yes, it's a little small, but the 16:9 aspect ratio makes up for that. Honestly though, It's a music device. They put an awesome sound chip in that machine.

I've said it before; I am a Wolfson audio fanboy now. This is my second device that has the Wolfson audio decoding chip in it, and as long as Wolfson remains alive, I won't buy another device without it.

I'm just saying...after having a Zune 1st gen for a couple years, Wolfson is allowing me to hear new sounds and new definitions and dimensions in my favorite music for the first time.

Honestly, I can't say enough good about this player.

If you have to have the latest shiny thing, get the P3. I will never buy Sony products again. Samsung IS the new Sony IMHO.

[n_shakuras @ Jul 15th 2009 1:00AM]

That's great, but what does that have to do with the Cowon S9 that we're discussing?

[someguy @ Jul 14th 2009 6:04PM]

I have the titanium version of this and I can't say the white look is something that made me wish I had waited, it just looks odd =/.

I noticed how the X-series Sony got a "What would you change about the ------" section on Engadget and it got hundreds of replies, mostly bitchy but I'm curious what people would say about the S9 in this regard as it does most things better than the Sony (FLAC, APE, OGG, WMV lossless as well as gapless for those, bigger screen, better video codec support, much better battery life) and for the same price. I really love this machine! (customisable UI rocks!!!), I bet a lot of other people would love it too, if only they knew about it.

[gatechne @ Jul 14th 2009 9:46PM]

Hi, I am on my second s9 and both bricked with a message "No Fonts No Resources." This is a well know problem that seems to escape every review and it is 100% reproducible. Several threads have been started regarding this issue, so I wanted to at least, point these out so noone else has to go through the crap I have had with 2 of the devices. The second one was a replacement ( new ) for the first with bricked the same way.

Read and enjoy and hopefully Cowon will actually do something about this instead of brushing it under the rug as they have been doing so far.

http://www.cowonamerica.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23964
http://iaudiophile.net/forums/showthread.php?t=29420
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44884