Q5W
Latest
Cowon hacks prices on practically every PMP it makes
Cowon already lowered the primary barrier to entry on its PMP line once this year, but evidently that wasn't enough. In order to entice prospective buyers to go ahead and snag that Cowon-branded player they've been on the fence about, the outfit has taken a sling blade to the stickers of the F2, D2, I7, Q5W, A3 and U5, leaving just the O2 as-is. The cuts aren't exactly small beans either, with discounts ranging from $10 to $70 off of MSRP. For the full list of new and old prices, hop on past the break.
Cowon gets official with upgraded A3, Q5W PMPs
We'd already heard that the Cowon A3 would be getting a bump to 80GB, and the company has now not only gotten official about a US release for it, but dropped word of new 80GB Q5W as well. You can look for the upgraded A3 to land in the US first on May 26th for $440 (a good deal less than the $691 Euro-to-dollar conversion we heard about initially), with the 80GB Q5W following in late June for $600. Both models are otherwise identical to their less capacious counterparts.
Cowon Q5W does SNES emulation with a PS1 controller
If you're an owner or prospective owner of the Cowon Q5W, you're probably impressed with its myriad audio and video playback capabilities -- but did you know it can handle emulation as well? Apparently, since the device is based on Windows CE, it's fairly easy to get game emulators up and running on the 5-inch PMP. In the video you can watch a setup of what appears to be an SNES imitator playing both Donkey Kong Country and Super Mario Kart (two favorites of our SNES fanboy, Paul Miller, we suspect). The games are controlled by a decidedly non-Nintendo accessory -- a PS1 controller connected via USB adapter. With that recent $50 price drop, this may be just the incentive you need to spring for a shiny new edition to your gadget library.
Cowon price drops abound
Call it fate or call it luck, but regardless of what you deem it, the latest wave of Cowon price drops will certainly save you a few bucks. Judging by listings at JetMall, Cowon has slashed dollars off of price tags attached to a variety of its devices, including $50 off of the luscious Q5W, $20 from the A3 30GB and some $90 from the 16GB iAUDIO 7. What's more, the entire Q5W lineup now comes with a free GPS cradle and a warm fuzzy feeling to boot. So if you've been holding off on treating yourself to a new Cowon, we'd say now would be a fairly decent time to pull the trigger and indulge.[Via CNET]
Cowon Q5W goes on sale in US, shows off its premium skills
We knew the Cowon Q5W was coming to our fair shores this week, but now that it's here, we've got some fresh details that make that $549 pricetag seem downright reasonable. You're still looking at a 5-inch 800 x 400 touchscreen and Windows CE, but Cowon has really thrown down the gauntlet with codec support, including DivX, XviD, AVI, ASF, WMV9, MPEG4, OGM, Ogg, FLAC and APE -- and the browser supports Flash. There's also a "pen mode" for the interface and an optional WinCE Office Viewer that might let you actually get some work done. To top it all off, the entire UI appears to be skinnable, and Cowon says a version with GPS will also hit next month. Damn, looks like our love affair with the Archos 605 WiFi is over.PS. Check the Cowon America product page for some of the best machine translation pickup lines we've ever seen.[Thanks, Gibran]
Cowon's US-bound Q5W gets price, release date
Good news for those not-so-patiently awaiting the launch of Cowon's totally hopped up Q5W (formerly known as the Q5) -- the US-bound uber-PMP is set to launch next week for slightly more jack than we heard earlier this year. Specs wise, we're looking at a 5-inch WVGA (800 x 480) display, 128MB of DDR2 SDRAM, 64MB of Flash memory, 802.11b/g WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, WinCE 5.0, a voice recorder, photo / text viewer, USB connectivity and support for more file formats than you can shake a flip-out antenna at. 'Course, such a well-spec'd unit won't come sans a premium, so don't be too shocked when you see that the 40GB version will run you $549.99 while the 60GB iteration demands an extra $50.
