The Newest Addition to Sh4dow’s Bargain Bin Tech? COWON S9!

Posted by Kelvin Chung in Featured Articles, Review on Sep 10th, 2009 | View Comments

The Cowon S9. Words cannot express the utter beauty.

First of all, the General Outlook:

The general outlook of the Cowon S9 is nice and curvy. Coming in Titanium and chrome for the sides, I ultimately decided against chrome due to its tendency to get scratched up within a day of use. i.e. iTouch. *Cough cough*. The back is of that nice velvety plastic/rubber material, which we are beginning to see a lot of in new tech. Screen is very nice, and it is nice and light,but just heavy enough to not feel like a dollar store toy. I will cover the screen in a bit more detail later. The buttons, conveniently located at the top, (two for volume, two for forward,backwards, and one in the middle for play/pause) are good for when you don’t want to take the damn thing out of your pocket and have to unlock the screen and everything. Screen cover is scratchproof glass. I’ve tried to prove them wrong. I failed. It’s scratchproof.

GUI:

The GUI is your classic touch screen menu. Gridlike. However, there’s a handy widget mode, and you can use the widget mode as your main menu instead. I personally prefer the main menu. Browsing is nice and simple. You have your classic browsing buttons located at the bottom of your screen. There’s the BACK button, the RETURN TO ROOT (up) button, a FUNCTION button (usually add to playlist) and a DEETE button. right beside the delete button is a “flip” button, which flips your button menu into a zoom bar, good for those people who are not so good at seeing. The Time is located top left, and battery is always shown top right. Volume is also shown in this top bar at all times, so when you turn the player on and go to music, you should have ample warning before having to apply for medical insurance for both ears.

VIDEO:

I love the support of codecs for video. And also with the AMOLED screen, you’re bound to get clearer pictures and more shiny colors. The G-sensor automatically detects which direction your player is tilted in, so if ur watching your video upside down, it’ll rotate for you. buttons at the bottom, just like in browsing mood. There is Skip left, skip right, play/pause, EQ (yes there is EQ for video too) and a “menu” button, which creates its own scene selection menu. That’s only for when its upright. When horizontal, you have a “add to playlist button, the skip and play buttons, fastfoward, andA-B Repeat. Press flip and you have a variety of buttons that i dont understand, i do know that one is to adjust the screen size, one is to lock the G-sensor, and one is for taking a screenshot. I think it also stores playback information on up to 3 videos, so if you close one and go to another, you can go back to the one you were watching earlier and not lose your spot.

AUDIO:

One of the best parts of this player is the JetEffect settings. The sound is absolutely astonishing. With the new Crystal Clear preset EQ, I’m hearing ride cymbals like i’ve never heard them before. (cliche, yes, but nojk) There’s also a variety of settings for custom presets you can fool around with. By setting my EQ, I managed to make my weak-bass Shure E3C’s into Thumping techno cannons. Fun =D. IT also has a lot of different functions in the buttons area, but im too lazy to go over them all. However, what i really want to mention is the Sony Ericson Walkmen-esque flick-wrist-to-switch-songs function. I flick the player, it changes songs. Great fun. Also supports bluetooth headphones.

FLASH PLAYER:

Nothing need be said here. Flash is Flash.

Utilities:

There’s a calculator, a paint function, a typewriter, a G-sensor based evasion game. there’s also a built in recorder, and the player has LINE IN/OUT through the USB port, another dongle you need to buy for that to work. and there’s FM Radio. There’s also a Ebook reader, and photo see-er, for all those that were wondering.

AMOLED:

The S9 uses some new in between LED and OLED technology (i think). This makes for blacker blacks, redder reds, crisper greens. whatever. Its nice and i like it. And plus it uses Capacitive Touchscreen technology, which IMO is better than resistive. With these hardware perks, The S9’s battery life is significantly increased to 55 hours of audio playback on a full charge and 11 (may have increased) hours of video playback on a full charge.

At 199 CAD, this was a great buy. I’d take this over the iTupperware any day.

This post has been rather drab, but I haven’t had the practice i sorely need in writing reviews in a long time. SORRY! (sadface) = (

Expect to see a BargainBin Sony Alpha 200 review soon.

Image: http://gizmodo.com/5134111/cowon-s9-review