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.

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]

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]