Cowon's D3 Plenue media player runs the Android operating system, supports a tonne of audio and video file formats, packs 32GB of storage space, and offers Wi-Fi connectivity, so you can use it to access the Web. But, priced at around £280, it's slightly more expensive than Apple's 32GB iPod touch, which costs around £250, so is it worth the extra moolah?
Intelligent design?
The D3 looks more like an Android smart phone than a traditional MP3 player. Its all-black case is fairly dull, although Cowon has added a tapered edge at the bottom where the three touch-sensitive controls sit.
The front is dominated by the 3.7-inch capacitive touchscreen, but there are a few physical buttons around the edges, including three playback controls on the right-hand side that sit above a volume rocker switch. The left-hand edge houses a power button that doubles as a lock switch and, beneath this, there's a microSD card slot. This allows you to add up to another 32GB of storage on top of the built-in 32GB.
Annoyingly, the 3.5mm headphone jack is positioned on the bottom of the device, which makes it awkward to put the D3 in a pocket. The D3 also uses a proprietary USB port for syncing with a PC. It doesn't charge over USB, though, so you can't easily top it up from a laptop when you're travelling.
On the plus side, the proprietary USB port can be used to output video over HDMI if you purchase the optional adaptor lead, which costs £9 or so. Our model didn't come with this lead, so we couldn't test this feature out.
The 3.7-inch touchscreen has a resolution of 480x800 pixels. It uses AMOLED technology rather than the TFT LCD tech found on the likes of the iPod touch. AMOLED screens can be easier on battery life as they don't use a backlight. Instead the material itself is light-emitting.
The propriety USB port can double up as an HDMI output if you buy an optional adaptor cable.
The D3's screen is excellent. Colours look rich and natural, and the display doesn't suffer from the bluish tinge that afflicts some AMOLED screens we've seen on other devices. It also produces superbly deep black levels, which helps images to look suitably high-contrast and cinematic.
The device's video-format support is also impressive. Our sample had no problem playing a range of Xvid, DivX and HD MKV files.
The D3 doesn't drop the ball when it comes to audio, either. It delivers very clean and precise sound, with crisp highs and deep bass levels. Format support is also excellent, with even less popular options, such as Flac and Ogg, catered for.
Battery life isn't bad either. Cowon says the D3 will run for 21 hours when playing audio, and 10 hours when playing video.
Flaky Gingerbread
The D3 has recently been updated to run Android 2.3 Gingerbread. The software has been heavily modified by Cowon. The icons look completely different and apps are accessed by sliding your finger across a bar at the bottom of the screen. Cowon has also replaced the standard music player with its own offering, but this is even less intuitive that the normal Android one, which is an astonishing feat.
Cowon has installed a few additional apps, including one for Twitter, but adding extra apps yourself isn't easy. The device doesn't support the Android Market, so there's no easy way to download new apps onto it. Instead you have to manually download APK packages and then add them to a specific folder on the device. It's about as user-friendly as a Rubik's Cube.
The more you use the D3, the more the limitations of its software become obvious. We came across a number of annoying bugs. For example, we couldn't get the device to connect to our Gmail account -- something that we've never had an issue with on any other Android device.
The D3 also randomly refused to accept touch input on occasions, and, when we used live wallpapers, the screen would start to flash with a strobe effect after being taken out of standby mode. Finally, the D3 would randomly rescan the media library from time to time, causing playback to freeze.
Conclusion
The Cowon D3 Plenue certainly has its strengths. It sounds great, offers excellent video and audio support, and packs a highly impressive AMOLED screen. But its lack of support for the Android Market, high price, and buggy software mean it's difficult to recommend.
Edited by Charles Kloet
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sonymad 2 March 2012
Good: Good sound quality Excellent video playback Impressive AMOLED screen Good range of features wi fi connectivity is fast sound quality is amazing responsive touchscreen
Bad: Expensive Buggy software
Comment: We want to love the Cowon D3, genuinely we do. Cowon cranks out PMPs with amazing sound and solid video support. But its first bash at an Android powered model has some serious flaws. Read on and find out what in our full Cowon D3 review.
Cast your mind back to last Spring, when we reviewed the Cowon J3: we said that for iTunes haters the delightful little portable media player was one of the best iPod touch alternatives out there. Sadly, its Android powered sequel is not.
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On paper, the Cowon D3 sounds like a dream come true: Android and Wi-Fi combined with a 3.7-inch AMOLED screen and Cowon’s sterling media skills, plus HDMI out put for 1080p playback on your telly, FM radio, 32GB of storage and microSD slot for adding your own storage.
Design and build
As you'd expect, Cowon has delivered with a gorgeous screen
That screen certainly is gorgeous: at 800×480 it’s just as sharp and vibrant as anything we’ve come to expect from the South Korean firm, and the fact that video support is so solid: it effortlessly handled your regular AVI and MP4 files, and even high def MKV clips without stutter.
We didn’t get to test the HDMI output unfortunately – this requires a cable sold separately, although we were more alarmed to find a US charger in the box instead of a UK one too. You can charge the Cowon D3 through its USB cable, but watch you don’t lose it as it irritatingly uses a proprietary connection.
This is the only angle the Cowon D3 looks nice from
In reality however, the Cowon D3 is far too big to be practical: it’s thicker and wider than the similarly shaped Nokia N8, and positively gigantic when placed next to a fourth generation iPod touch. It doesn’t help that the track control and pause/play buttons on the side don’t always react immediately when you press them – though we suspect the software might be to blame here.
Android
The Cowon D3 breaks with tradition by running Android: outside of Archos’ range, very few Android flavoured media players are actually on sale in the UK yet, although on the basis of this, we can see why. Running a skinned version of the year old Android 2.1 build without Google’s core apps, the Cowon D3 exhibits all of the problems with Google’s OS, and none of its great advantages.
The Cowon D3 runs a skinned version of Android
At first glance, everything seems in order. The menu screen is attractive, and launched from the homescreen with a swipe from the right hand side of the display. The web browser is pretty nippy, and the touchscreen keyboard easy to type with. Cowon’s even tweaked it enough to run lossless audio file formats like FLAC natively, which audiophiles will love, and there’s a pleasant CD widget for juggling your tracks. You won’t be able to install apps from the Android Market however, so you’ll have to find APK files for anything you want to install – not always an easy task.
But – and this for us is a dealbreaker – the Cowon D3?s Android build is so unstable as to be nigh on unusable. It crashed repeatedly in testing, despite numerous resets, causing whatever app was open to drop.
We also found the Cowon D3 became unreasonably warm with use – it’s possible you could feel it through your pocket.
Verdict
For all the Cowon D3?s media playing skills and incredible sound – its audio quality through headphones is vastly superior to anything Apple can muster – this is a flawed device, especially at an eye watering £279. By contrast, the 32GB new iPod touch sells for £254 on the Apple Store.
With powerful Android phones becoming so cheap these days, we’re also wondering if the Android PMP market is already dead in the water – why buy this chunkster when you can get a great phone with most of the same skills for £100 today? We can’t answer that for you, but maybe Samsung will soon.
Denise Uy 18 November 2011
Comment: I would like to correct you on the pricing because apple's ipod touch 32 gigabyte model is $299 which (on the article) you stated as $250. However , the the 8 GB model is $229 which you may have confused with the 32GB model. I have done research and it does happen to have a buggy software which I hope that they would be working on that sooner or later
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