About a month ago we speculated on whether or not a 16GB Cowon D2 was in the works. The player has now shown up on jetmall.net which is Cowon's official US reseller, so it's safe to say this is for real.

The biggest surprise has to be the price - and by that I don't mean it's high. The 16GB D2 sells for only $240 with free shipping, which isn't the cheapest 16GB option around but also far from the most expensive. Add $70 bucks and you'll get a 16GB SDHC card that will make it a total of 32GB for $310.

To take a quick look at the rest of the 16GB club, the current prices are: Creative Zen 16GB $180 (Amazon), Sansa View 16GB $150 (Amazon), Sony NWZ-A729 16GB $290 (Amazon) and Sony NWZ-A829 16GB $320 (Amazon). The Samsung P2 16GB has just been released in Europe and is expected to arrive in the US soon for about $300.

[Jetmall via GenerationMP3]

Electronics come in pretty much any material you can imagine, from standard plastic to stainless steel and NASA approved Kryptonite. The oldest material of them all is however the one that looks most awesome when used in every day gadgetry - wood. I myself have some experience in that area so the new special edition Cowon N3 due for release in Korea soon is most definitely a hit in my book.

The N3 itself is old(ish) news and being a Asia only device it's not too well known in other parts of the world. It's somewhere between a GPS and the Cowon Q5W, with a 7" 800x480 touchscreen, dual SDHC slots for memory, navigation kit and a DMB tuner. The wood-covered version will have identical features and the difference is a slightly higher price and the awesome looking Burl Walnut frame. I don't know about the rest of you, but one of these, a couple of 32GB SDHC cards and a nice pair of Darth Beyers and I'd be set for life.

[Akihabara News]

The Cowon D2 has been around for over a year now and has perhaps been Cowon's biggest success ever. It has survived in the race for more storage capacity for so long because of the SDHC card slot that allows users to add up to 16GB (32GB soon) on top of the 2, 4 or 8GB of internal memory. Now it seems Cowon has finally taken a step further and is planning on releasing a 16GB D2.

There is no official word yet, but the 16GB version just showed up on a German webshop so it's very likely this isn't just a rumour. The player is so far listed without any release date or price so there is still a chance this is just a glitch. If it turns out to be true that will mean the D2 will have a current max capacity of 32GB with 48GB being possible in the near future.

[MP3-player.de via GenerationMP3]

The Cowon Q5W might be the mother of all PMPs currently available, with features (and price tag) putting it closer to a tablet PC than a PMP. The player runs Windows CE 5.0, so there are lots of potential for tweaking right out of the box.

One owner did just that, and got a SNES (Super Nintendo) emulator to work on his Q5W. Controlling the emulator is done via a Playstation controller and a USB adapter through the Q5W's USB host. The whole setup seems to work pretty well, and it's definitely worth trying for those of you with a Q5W. Video after the jump.

[ PlayerBites]

The iAudio A3 is Cowon's flagship PMP with a very thorough list of supported codecs in both music and video. The 800x480 16.7 million color screen is crisp and will do justice to your video collection. There is a lot of good going on with the A3, and it's probably the best PMP of its size on the market.

However, the A3 is still has plenty of issues. The user interface is weak (as is many of Cowon's interfaces), the firmware could use some work and the advertised 1280x720 HD playback is anything but refined. Again, the A3 is a great PMP, but read on for the caution areas.

While talking with some of the Cowon reps at CES 2008 I was tipped off to the D3 while inquiring about supported video resolution on the D2. I asked if there were any plans the D2 would ever support video resolutions above 320x240. He said no, but the D3 might. The rep then gave me three pieces of information- the D3 will be smaller, slimmer, and out in 6 months. “Out in 6 months” is not very clear since this could mean out in Korea in 6 months or announced in 6 months. The US may see it 6 to 12 months in those terms.

Last year I was told that they had no plans to release the Q5 to the US and they did. There could have been a change of plans or there could have been a miscommunication in that it would not be Q5 in the US but a Q5W. That said I would take the D3 news rumor, but a very plausible rumor since it came from the mouths of Cowon.

Affirmed just one week in advance, the release date of the A3 for the Korean market is now scheduled for November 14. Due to the extensive list of functions that the 30GB and 60GB PMP provides it is no wonder Cowon is referring to the A3 as an extreme PMP.

Improving on the A2, the resolution of the 4-inch 16 million color LCD has increased by two thirds to 800 x 480. Additional codecs supported are primarily Matroska, h.264, VOB, Apple Lossless, AAC, APE, GIF and TIF, while videos up to 1280 x 720 pixles can now be played. The weight of the 30GB version is lighter than the A2 by 0.63oz and the user EQ has increased to 10-bands.

It’s been a long wait since Cowon first announced the A3 so hopefully it won't too much longer for the rest of the world. For now the Korean prices are 349,000 Won ($385) for the 30GB and 419,000 ($462) for the 60GB.

[Press Release | Product Page]

Both Japan and Korea will receive an additional broadcasting service to one Cowon media player each this month. An alternate version of the iAudio D2 will be offered alongside the standard model in Japan. It will be almost identical to the original D2 and provide all the same features as well as a 1seg TV tuner which streams content with its built-in retractable antenna. Suitably called the D2TV it is in essence Japan’s equivalent to the D2 DMB.

The second player to gain some extra functionality is the iAudio L2. In the form of a firmware upgrade, rather than a hardware adaptation, it will accept TPEG transmissions which contain real-time traffic and weather reports. The service will be broadcasted over DMB and certainly compliment the device’s GPS navigation system.

[Press Release | Press Release via Impress]

Officially declaring two of their highly anticipated portable media players, Cowon has proposed a late October release date in Europe for the Q5 and A3.

The striking 5-inch, 800 x 480 pixel, 16 million color touchscreen of the Q5 is far from all you should be impressed by. An immense collection of supported formats (MP3, OGG Vorbis, FLAC, WAV, WMA, ASF, AVI, WMV, MPEG 4, DivX, JPEG, BMP, and PNG) are sure to cover the majority of your music, video, and picture viewing needs. If all this on the 40GB and 60GB hard drive doesn’t give you access to enough media, then the Wi-Fi internet downloads, Bluetooth connectivity and USB port may suit. Stereo speakers are built in, as well as outputs for TV and SPDIF.

The Cowon iAudio A3 makes use of a 4-inch display with the same 800 x 480 pixel resolution as the Q5, but has 30GB and 60GB hard drive capacities. If you thought the format support for the Q5 was impressive, the A3 offers the entire list above plus Apple Lossless, AAC, and Matroska. It will even view your PDF and Microsoft Office files. Also included is a TV-out, audio line-in and the capability to record your video from VCR, set-top box and camcorder.

Both players will produce 7 hours of video playback, while 10 hours of audio playback is given to the A3 and 14 to the Q5. Pricing for the Q5 is €649 ($886) for the 40GB and €699 ($954) for the 60GB, whereas the A3 is €449 ($613) in 30GB and €499 ($681) in 60GB.

[The Register via Tech Digest]

It has not taken long for another DAP manufacturer to follow suit after the Creative Zen V Plus received a memory increased to 16GB. The iAudio 7 with a capacity of 16GB has been announced by Cowon.

Alongside the i7, new edition of the D2 (dubbed the D2 DMB) will feature 4GB and 8GB of internal storage, while expansion through SDHC cards can provide a further 8GB. The increase in storage space is not the only addition to the D2; it will also receive the ability to handle DMB content.

Several player and accessory packs are available for the South Korean market, but there is no dates and prices for other regions yet.

[Press Release]

This photo was sent to me (thanks David) claiming to be an early prototype of Cowon's update to their flagship hard drive player, the X5. While the photo is clearly a Photoshop job, it could have been done by Cowon. What leads me to believe that this is legit is the reuse of buttons found on the i7 and the D2—definitely Cowon’s style. The Gomatic connection on the bottom also matches their previous players.

The player looks a little too thin to incorporate a hard drive so it may be going the way of every other player and like the D2, flash with expandable memory. From the photos the player looks to be touch screen. To me that’s somewhat of a disappointment, but at least there are dedicated volume buttons.

The D2 was a hit and the X7 looks to be a larger improved version of it-- Cowon may have another winner.

Full resolution photo below.

Cowon has updated their i6 by replacing the 0.85” micro hard drive with flash memory and upgraded the battery for long lasting 60 hours of playtime. Adding the flash memory to this device is a big improvement since one of the biggest complaints about the iAudio 6 was is slow interface due to the data bottle neck of the hard drive. The iAudio 7 has the same great sound, powerful amp, features, and solid build quality as the i6. There are no substantial improvements other than the speedier interface, which is now par by standards.

The player is basically a year old at its “new” launch date. Can Cowon keep resting on its fanboy audiophile base and branding of being “the best sound quality” without improving interface and basic usability?

You never can tell with these Cowon rumors and release dates, but the guys over at French MP3 player site GenerationMP3 got word straight from Cowon that the X7 will be announced at this years European electronics show, IFA. Cowon fans are crossing their fingers that this will actually be the first glimse we get of this elusive device. It is also reported that this will indeed be a hard drive based player registering in at 60GB and 80GB capacities.

However, I think that many of us are also crossing our fingers hoping that Cowon does not follow the trendy and less practical touch screen / touch pad rout for the X5 successor. Tactile interfaces for the win! The D2 is an awesome device, but its touch screen interface lends to usability issues in many situations. Speaking of which will get a memory boost to 16GB very soon. More to come on both devices...

Fake X7 photo courtesy of iAudiophile =)

[GenMP3]

The picture is probably enough for you to realize that this is the successor of the Cowon iAudio 6, as few changes have been made to the exterior of the player, but what you can't see is that the mini 0.85” hard drive has been replaced by flash memory in 4GB and 8GB sizes. The outstanding support for audio formats (MP3, WMA, ASF, Ogg Vorbis, and FLAC) is still there, as are the 1.3” 260K-color OLED screen, FM radio, voice recorder, and support for XviD, TXT, and JPEG files. The new player's 60-hour battery life is a dramatic increase over its predecessor's 20-hour playback time.

The Cowon iAudio 7 will be released in Korea on the 18th of July, but so far no international release date has been set.

[Bestofmicro | Cowon via Engadget]

You may ask how Cowon has possibly fit more features into their N2 PMP navigation system. Here's how: the L2 has been improved by doubling the internal memory to 2GB and replacing the 500MHz processor with two 266MHz processors that will be supported by 64MB of SDRAM instead of 128MB DDR2 SDRAM.

The L2 manages to retain the N2’s 7” WQVGA LCD (480 x 234) screen, GPS SiRF III chip, DMB tuner (service unavailable for most countries), Windows CE 5.0 operating system, two 2W speakers, line-out, and FM transmitter. However, it will only have one SD card slot instead of two, loses support for OGG and WMV, and the screen will be about 7% less bright.

[Product Page via GenerationMP3]