Review of Cowon A2

Pros:

The Cowon A2 portable video player has a bright, crisp 4-inch wide-screen LCD as well as a clean, visually appealing form factor and interface. It's a performer with an excellent FM radio, great sound and recording quality, and long battery life. The Cowon A2 portable video player supports a multitude of audio and video formats and serves as a voice recorder, a zoomable photo viewer, and a PVR. Finally, it conveniently uses an A/V line-in cable, rather than a hub, for recording audio and video.

Cons:

The Cowon A2 portable video player takes a step down because it doesn't yet support Windows Media DRM. Despite a clean and attractive color interface, it has an inefficient navigation interface. Also, the Cowon A2 portable video player doesn't ship with a remote control and lacks a removable battery, unlike its chief competitor, the Archos AV500.

Review:

The Cowon A2 portable video player's video and audio playback capabilities are good, the design is attractive, and the interface is fairly easy to use, but we're a bit disappointed in what we feel is the device's main feature: video recording. There are also some file-compatibility issues that need to be worked out before we can get really excited about this product.

At 5.2 by 3.0 by 0.9 inches and 10.5 ounces, the Cowon A2 portable video player is bulkier and heavier than the Archos AV500, despite having the same-size screen (4 inches diagonal, 480 by 272 pixels). The analog controls are minimal and located well; buttons labeled A, B, and C behave differently depending on context, and the menu interface clearly tells you what each will do in a given situation. You browse files via a Back button and a four-way joystick. To select menu items, you push the joystick straight in; this is something we wish would just go away, since most manufacturers seem unable to make a joystick that's easy to push straight in without it accidentally slipping to one side. Two speakers and a microphone are built into the top of the portable video player, and a panel on the side opens to reveal line-in and line-out ports, a USB port, and a USB Host port. The hold switch on the bottom of the portable video player also toggles between the built-in LCD and an external monitor.

True to Cowon's product legacy, the Cowon A2 portable video player is packed with tons of features, including an FM tuner, audio and video line-in recording, voice recording, and an alarm that doubles as a recording scheduler. The rechargeable battery, alas, isn't removable. It is, however, rated at a surprising 10 hours of video playback time and 18 hours for audio. On our real-world tests, we got just over 7.5 hours of video playback using the default settings and included earbuds —which is still pretty good; for audio playback, we got a somewhat respectable 17 hours 14 minutes. The portable video player ships with a decent-looking case, USB and USB On the Go cables, A/V cables, an audio line-in cable, an AC charger, and video conversion software, but no remote control.

When we plugged the Cowon A2 portable video player into our PC, it was quickly recognized as a USB drive, with no installation necessary. The manual is fairly informative, and it's worth at least a brief skim before getting deep into the product. The battery won't charge via USB if the hold switch is on LCD; it will charge on AV Out, but PC recognition is slow. The portable video player doesn't work with Microsoft Windows Media Player, so we used Windows Explorer to load our test audio, video, and photo files.

The interface looks fairly polished and relies on a combination of a tree-style browser and "soft keys" or buttons that have contextual behaviors. The multipaned browser provides an excellent amount of information, including how many files (and of what type) are in each folder and technical details on each file (including EXIF data for photos). We do wish the interface provided thumbnail previews of files. The tabbed settings menus are easy to navigate, and we like that options are presented in simple numbers for things like volume levels and in the appropriate units for items like bit rates. The only thing holding navigation back is the sometimes frustrating difficulty of pushing the joystick straight in to make selections; we'd prefer a dedicated Select button. You can create separate dynamic playlists of audio, photos, and videos, and you can delete files directly on the device, though you can't move or rename files.

Related product: 4Media PS3 Video Converter