J3 as [my] next PMP player? =D

[justing943]

Hi!

After deciding to probably not purchase the Zen X-Fi 2 as my next player, I think I want the Cowon J3, as the general consensus seems to be that it's one of the best PMPs for portable use.

I've done research myself, but could some people who own one give me their opinions on it please ^^

Some downsides I've come across are long loading times, and [a personal opinion] the 20-pin cable which isn't particularly easy to obtain compared to mini-usb cables :S.

Thanks, in advance,
-justing

[CrowdAds]

[NeedBalanceCtrl]

Originally Posted by justing943

Hi!

After deciding to probably not purchase the Zen X-Fi 2 as my next player, I think I want the Cowon J3, as the general consensus seems to be that it's one of the best PMPs for portable use.

I've done research myself, but could some people who own one give me their opinions on it please ^^

Some downsides I've come across are long loading times, and [a personal opinion] the 20-pin cable which isn't particularly easy to obtain compared to mini-usb cables :S.

Thanks, in advance,
-justing

Hi justing.

The J3 does not offer ReplayGain or a proprietary method of normalizing volume so if you have music from different sources, they may be at very different level of sound. It could get very annoying if you use shuffle/random play often.

The J3 has very weak support of playlists. If you want to create multiple on-the-go playlists, you're out of luck. There is one Favorite list that you can add up to 256 tracks--that's it.

Those are the major weaknesses for most people who need or want those features. Otherwise the J3 is pretty good. I love the AMOLED screen. It's just dazzling. The Sound Quality is very good with fully customized EQ settings. I personally don't think it looks all that good--it's mostly plastic, not metal or aluminum--but the upside is that it's light. It's so light that when my wife first held it, she looked at me and said it was a "cheap, plastic" toy. LOL. I have to agree with her, it does feel like a cheap, plastic toy, but underneath the plastic has some very good electronics producing very good sound quality. Others have posted they thought the J3 was a beauty, so to each his or her own.

Try to keep in mind that it's NOT a perfect player. Given an understanding of the limitations of the J3 and you still decide to purchase it, then I think you'll be quite happy with it.

I'm pretty happy with my purchase and would purchase it again if I had a do-over, but I'd probably go with a 32GB version now. At the time of my purchase, they only had 8gb and 16gb versions out.

Happy decision making.

p.s. One major weakness for my personal needs is that you cannot associate a unique EQ preset for each song on the J3. You either have to accept playing all songs using one EQ setting or you have to manually change EQ presets with each song. This missing feature actually really bothers me, but many forum members on here don't seem to need or even want this feature. So again, to each his or her own.

[justing943]

Okay cool thanks =o

By on-the-go playlists, did you mean creating playlists without the aid of a computer, i.e. directly from the J3 itself?

That's good to know, neither of those setbacks, I believe, will be much of an issue to me. Although, I don't recall coming across any pmp/mp4/etc that had a normalizing function before :O.

I think I'll be buying the J3. My final concern is still the price, as I believe for $230 the 32GB Zen X-Fi 2 is a good purchase, but the $400 for the 32gb J3 is of much higher quality. Still trying to make that decision xD.

Thanks,
-justing

[NeedBalanceCtrl]

Originally Posted by justing943

Okay cool thanks =o

By on-the-go playlists, did you mean creating playlists without the aid of a computer, i.e. directly from the J3 itself?

Yes, creation of a Favorite list is on the J3 itself, without aid of a computer.

Originally Posted by justing943

That's good to know, neither of those setbacks, I believe, will be much of an issue to me. Although, I don't recall coming across any pmp/mp4/etc that had a normalizing function before :O.

With iTunes and a iPod, if you turn on SoundCheck, all songs are normalized with iTunes and the iPod takes advantage of that metadata info and plays back the songs on the iPod with that normalization info. Then you won't have one song that's very loud and the next song very low in volume. I really miss that feature, coming from an iPod.

Originally Posted by justing943

I think I'll be buying the J3. My final concern is still the price, as I believe for $230 the 32GB Zen X-Fi 2 is a good purchase, but the $400 for the 32gb J3 is of much higher quality. Still trying to make that decision xD.

Thanks,
-justing

If you can wait a bit, I'm sure the J3 will come down in price. In fact it's already come down $3.00 on Amazon.com (US).

[justing943]

Thanks for the quick response! :O

Ahh, okay =(

Probs a long shot considering you own a J3 and not an X-Fi 2, do you know if the X-Fi 2 has normalising =P?

Oh, by the playlists I meant the ones that you referred to in:

Quote: The J3 has very weak support of playlists. If you want to create multiple on-the-go playlists, you're out of luck. There is one Favorite list that you can add up to 256 tracks--that's it.

Thanks in advance,
-justin

[NeedBalanceCtrl]

Originally Posted by justing943

Thanks for the quick response! :O

Ahh, okay =(

Probs a long shot considering you own a J3 and not an X-Fi 2, do you know if the X-Fi 2 has normalising =P?

Oh, by the playlists I meant the ones that you referred to in:

Quote: The J3 has very weak support of playlists. If you want to create multiple on-the-go playlists, you're out of luck. There is one Favorite list that you can add up to 256 tracks--that's it.

Thanks in advance,
-justin

I don't own a X-Fi 2, so I don't know.

As for playlists, you can create one playlist on the J3 itself, without the aid of a computer, and it's called a Favorite list on the J3.

If you want to create multiple playlists, it is said one can create more playlists using programs such as MediaMonkey, but I've personally not been able to do that. I'm still waiting for someone who claims to be able to do it to provide some detailed instructions on how exactly to do that with MediaMonkey and the J3.

My personal opinion is that when it comes to playlist, the J3 is very weak in supporting playlists.

But if your main/primary concern is sound quality, I don't think you'll be unhappy with the J3. Its sound quality is really very good.

[justing943]

Yeah, thanks =D

I also haven't read anything anywhere so far that suggests the Cowon sound quality is less than excellent. With that said however, my audio tastes are less than par, as I am not particularly put off with just listening to music on my Nokia 6120c extremely-outdated phone at the moment.

So sound-wise, I'll be happy with anything that people at least give a half-hearted thumbs up to, so I guess, at the moment my main concern is video. My main gripe with the X-Fi 2 is the 262k colour, 3inch [small] screen. I'll head on over to the creative forums now and find out about the normalizing.

Thanks for the reply! Btw for me, the playlist problem wouldn't classify as a problem for me personally, I've never been a playlist user, I just shuffle through my entire collection, haha.

Ty~
-justin

[NeedBalanceCtrl]

Originally Posted by justing943

Yeah, thanks =D

I also haven't read anything anywhere so far that suggests the Cowon sound quality is less than excellent. With that said however, my audio tastes are less than par, as I am not particularly put off with just listening to music on my Nokia 6120c extremely-outdated phone at the moment.

So sound-wise, I'll be happy with anything that people at least give a half-hearted thumbs up to, so I guess, at the moment my main concern is video. My main gripe with the X-Fi 2 is the 262k colour, 3inch [small] screen. I'll head on over to the creative forums now and find out about the normalizing.

Thanks for the reply! Btw for me, the playlist problem wouldn't classify as a problem for me personally, I've never been a playlist user, I just shuffle through my entire collection, haha.

Ty~
-justin

I can't imagine you'd be disappointed with video on the J3. The screen is absolutely dazzling. It's true 16 million colors. I wouldn't mind a bigger screen size though.

[justing943]

I think I'm okay with a 3.3 inch screen, although I miss the giant 4.4 inch on my Zen:Vision W, although anything with a screen that size wouldn't be pocket friendly IMHO anymore xD.

16.7m colours should be teh sex, not to mention the awesome battery life. Looking forward to purchasing my J3