The Cowon D2+. It's hard to know where to begin in describing this little player. This is partly because it is difficult to know what to compare it to. It has a touchscreen and movie capability, so one might compare it to an iPod Touch. But this would not really be a fair comparison for either player. The Cowon D2+ is much smaller, lacks any sort of internet connectivity, and certainly does not boast the sleek elegance and applications of the iPod. However, the Cowon D2+ is nearly $100 cheaper. And anyone who has any experience with Cowon will tell you that one doesn't by a Cowon audio device for internet or applications. One buys a Cowon for sound quality. And the Cowon D2+ blows any Apple device out of the water on these grounds. Even on cheap headphones, the difference is noticeable. (In the interest of full disclosure, I do not own an iPod Touch. These comparisons were made using a friend's iPod.)
So what should we compare the D2+ to? Really, it's an amazingly affordable audio player with video playing tacked on. It is better to think of it along the lines of one of the previous generation iPod Videos. It bridges the gap between the cheap mp3 players that can do video (like the Samsung S3) and those mp3 players that really do do video, like Cowon's own S9, or an iRiver Clix.
Design-wise, the D2+ suffers, as many of Cowon's products do. It doesn't look all that great. It's chunky. Brick-like. However, what it lacks in style, it makes up for in build quality. The D2+ has some heft to it. It feels substantial in your hand. Though made of plastic, it doesn't feel plasticy, if that makes any sense. And even given it's squarish frame, it still fits quite comfortably in a front pocket.
But design is more than just externals. The thing that really sets the D2+ apart, in my mind, are all the conveniences that it brings with it. This is where it really starts to look nice compared to the iPods of the world. First of all, it is charged and docked using a standard USB mini-jack. You know, the kind that you use for just about everything else that you attach to your computer. I cannot stress how convenient this is. I have a single USB cord plugged into my computer that I use to connect my video camera, my two digital photo cameras, my phone...and I can just use that same plug for my D2+. Even more importantly, if I ever lose my cord, I don't have to send off to the manufacturer, or buy a specialized chord. I can just use one of my million extra USB cables I have lying around. Even better than that: I can charge my D2+ in my car thanks to the USB cable to cigarette-lighter plug that came with my GPS. I really don't understand yet why every mp3 player (or every peripheral device, for that matter) doesn't just use this wonderful standard plug.
Another great feature of convenience of the D2+ is the SD Card port. That's right...this is one of the few players you can find nowadays that is actually expandable. I bought the 8gb version, but with the purchase of an inexpensive sd card, I can double, or even triple the D2+'s storage. (Yes, indeed...it is SDHC compatible.) And I love the convenience of popping in/out the sd card to load up new podcasts rather than plugging the player in. What can I say, I'm lazy. I like the convenience, and the knowledge that if I ever get around to filling up the 8gb of space I have (which I will), I'm a 16gb SD card away from plenty of extra breathing room.
To round out the external ports and buttons, you'll also find a proprietary I/O plug (for Video-Out or an external microphone), a standard headphone jack, a power/hold slider, a built-in microphone, volume buttons, and a menu key. It's actually roughly the same configuration you get with the iAudio 7 (with the exception that the iAudio 7 used a standard connection for the Line-In).
Now, let's talk about the user experience. The D2+ is touchscreen. This worried me at first. I'm not a huge fan of touch screens. I like real, physical buttons. Furthermore, my experience with the iAudio 7 did not give me much confidence in Cowon's ability to design an intuitive menu-system. And with a touchscreen, and intuitive menu-system really is a must. Now, to be honest, the UI of the D2+ is...okay. It's actually much, much better than I feared. But it is still a little convoluted, and it takes some getting used to. Some things are brilliant. Others...not so much.
Let's talk about the brilliant things first:
1) The play/pause rew/ff buttons are great. Basically, whenever you're on the playing music screen, simply pushing your finger anywhere on the screen will bring up the play/pause button in the middle, and the rew/ff buttons on either side. They are big enough that it's easy to hit them. It works so well, I can even control the player on the touchscreen without even looking. It really is that good. Just push the screen once to bring up the menu, and then push the middle of the screen to play/pause, or either side of the screen to skip forward or backwards. Brilliant.
2) The menus are context-sensitive. I really like how when you bring up a menu while you're playing an audio file, the menu options are designed to be the ones you would most tend to use while playing an audio file. It makes a lot of sense, but I have rarely seen it done this well. The only thing that would make this better would be to have the menus user-editable.
Not so brilliant things:
1) There are a million options (which is certainly not a bad thing), but they're hard to discover and difficult to get to. This is problem I have run into with just about anyone except Apple. Apple solved this problem by not letting you change anything. But this is no solution. I love how tweakable the D2+ is. But some major work needs done on consolodating menu items and categorizing things properly. I'm sure I'll figure it out in time. But really...why should I have "Display", "General", and "System" settings all in very different places, controlling very similar things? Put it all in one place.
2) There is no way to delete files without syncing the device to the computer. I really don't get this one. On the iAudio 7, I could delete a file even while I was playing it. My sansa clip (which I will review next week) can delete files without any problem. I realized that it may seem strange to want to delete files--but when I'm finished with a podcast, I don't want it hanging around on the system. I get confused which one's I've already listened to. I want to just delete it and be done with it. As it is, though, I have to plug the D2+ into a computer before I can do anything about it. This could easily be fixed in a firmware update, which I really hope happens...but I won't be holding my breath.
Aside from these major things, there are many small pluses and minuses we could go into. But that would get boring really quickly. Let me just summarize by saying that the UI is not as nice as an iPod, but quite usable, and a big improvement from the other Cowon devices I have used in the past.
Now, before this review gets too long, I just want to point out a few other pluses and minuses to the D2+ as a system. The only real minus that I think deserves mentioning is that this really should not be considered a video player. Yes, the screen is fantastic, and the fact that you could just load your videos onto an SD card is really convenient. Except that Cowon has messed up again and severely hamstrung the D2+'s video playing ability. You are limited to playing videos that are encoded in MPEG-4 (XVid works fine), which is not so bad, until you realize that the resolution must be 320x240. It's a huge pain to have to re-encode all of my videos to play. Perhaps the system just isn't beefy enough to downscale a 640x480 file, but it's still annoying. And at this point, a little h.264 love would be nice.
To end on the good points, let's begin with the absolutely unbelievable battery life. I experienced this with the iAudio7 as well, but I'm even more impressed with the D2+. The thing just lasts forever. I'm upwards of 40 hours right now, and I'm still showing about a 1/3 charge. Can you believe that? 40 hours! And this is not just listening to music. I've watched a little over two hours of video on it as well. I suspect that part of the reason that the D2+ seems a bit hefty and chunky is due to the battery. It must be some battery to last this long! But this is really something that I think other mp3 player manufacturers should realize--I'm willing to have a slightly stubbier body if it means I'm not having to plug the player in every day to charge!
Second, (and this is the main reason I buy Cowon products to begin with) the D2+ will play just about every file format under the sun. Sure it will do your standard MP3, WMA, and WAV. (If you use the old firmware, you can even play AACs.) But more importantly, it will play your OGG Vorbis, FLAC, and even APE files. I'm a huge fan of FLAC, myself, so this really is a major plus in my book.
Well, that's about it for the Cowon D2+. I really recommend this little guy, especially if you're a linux-lover who likes using open formats like Vorbis and FLAC. Even if you're not a linux geek, though...the D2+ is really hard to beat for the price.
