Cowon Z2 Plenue - Some Opinions

Gear: Cowon Z2 Plenue, Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0, iPod Nano 6G.

I'm not going to keep the Cowon Z2 Plenue, because there are too many negatives. But first let's go over some positives.


Interface and Apps
Cowon has spent a good amount of time creating an interface that works together quite well. There is an actual theme to the interface.

Audio Quality
The Z2 has JetEffect 5, which is based on BBE+, and this delivers very rich audio quality. It's better than what my iPod Nano 6G can do (the Nano 6G feels "flatter").

File Formats
One of the reasons I got the Z2 was the wide file format support. Cowon lists the following audio formats: MP3/2/1, WMA, OGG, WAV, ASF, FLAC, APE, and M4A. For video they list: AVI, WMV, ASF, MP4, MKV, MPG, DAT, TS, TP, TRP, 3GP. And for video it can read: JPG, PNG, GIF, and BMP.

Overall very darn good. I can only think of another company that has this wide support, and that would be Creative.

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Of course there are some negatives.

Wifi
The wifi is too erratic. Sometimes the wifi signal will be high, then low, and the Z2 hasn't moved at all. Sometimes it just loses wifi, although it indicates that it's connected.

Downloaded Music
It seems like the Z2 hates downloaded music. I used several apps to download music files, and sometimes the music would have a little "tah" noise throughout music. It's very annoying.

Corrupted Videos
If you are downloading a movie, and the wifi gets disconnected, you will be in very bad luck because the video becomes corrupted. If you play this corrupted file the Z2 will freeze, and will need a reboot to work. They could have just given you a notification saying that the file was corrupted.

Browser + Videos
Terrible and not worth doing with this player.

No Appstore
Cowon did not include an app store in the Z2. You can install several app stores by downloading the .apk file on your computer and transferring it to the Z2. Some app stores will work fine (like the Amazon one), and some may not work at all (like Google Play).

Standby Time
This is one of the worst things in the Z2. Just because you place the Z2 in standby it does not mean it will conserve battery, it will continue to use it quite a bit. So when you pick the Z2 a few hours later your battery will need a few hours of charging time.

Brightness
While the Z2's screen has very beautiful colors, it does NOT get very bright. The iPod Nano 6G and the Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0 are brighter than the Z2.

Conclusion
Some positives, some negatives. I don't think the Z2 is worth keeping around, because it is expensive and you would assume that it could do more things flawlessly. I will keep the cheaper Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0, and return the Cowon Z2.

(66m)