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Product Specifications
Brand NameCowon
Operating SystemAndroid 2.1 Eclair
Number of Items1
Technical Details
- 3.7” AMOLED Capacitive Touch screen, 16 million colors, res. 800x480, ultra portable
- Play all your digital entertainment: movies, TV shows, photos and music
- Supports MP3/2/1, WMA, WAV, ASF, FLAC, APE, M4A and OGG Vorbis audio formats;full HD 1080p Video playback
- Bluetooth, MicroSD Card Slot, G-Sensor, Built-in Speaker, internal microphone and TV-out supporting composite connections & HDMI
- Maximum 10 hours of video playback and maximum 21 hours of audio playback
Product Details
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Product Description
3.7 inch AMOLED Capacitive Touch screen, 16 million colors, res. 800x480, ultra portable Play all your digital entertainment , movies, TV shows, photos and music Touch sensitive interface Bluetooth, MicroSD Card Slot, G-Sensor, Built-in Speaker, internal microphone and TV-out supporting composite connections and HDMI Maximum 10 hours of video playback and maximum 21 hours of audio playback Supports MP3 or 2 or , WMA, WAV, ASF, FLAC, APE, M4A and OGG Vorbis audio formats , full HD 1080p Video playback.
Available Warranties for This Item
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
45 of 46 people found the following review helpful
By D. Brown
I own the D3, and have gone over it with a fine tooth comb. While the specs are great, the firmware is not quite ready. Mine freezes up randomly. There is a persistent flaw in the music application that makes the audio cut-out momentarily near the beginning of each new song being played. There is also no access to any app market on the U.S. firmware of the D3. Cowon has been releasing updates rapidly though. These flaws may eventually be fixed, but since this is their first venture using Android on one of their players it is clear they need more experience. It is also overpriced given that a reliable 4th gen 32gb iPod Touch is $299 or less. There is no camera or GPS, and so far no engish version of a User Manual available either. Bluetooth worked fine with headphones except for that audio cut-out flaw. Files transfers over bluetooth failed every time I tried. No Bluetooth keyboard or mouse support either.
At the time of this review my D3 had (Korean) firmware 1.27 on it. The latest North America version was 3.25.
Update 2/10/2011: Cowon updated the firmware today, and with version 3.27 on my D3 the audio cut-out seems to have been eliminated.
Update 2/16/2011: Cowon updated the firmware again, to 1.29 (Korean). I expect the U.S. version (3.29) in a day or two. Now up to 9 home pages. Updates to the Music app including album art support for FLAC files. Still no gapless playback. Still the occasional bug playing music.
Update 3/12/2011: Cowon updated the firmware again. I've got version 3.31 on mine now. The Music app seems to be fixed except for no gapless playback yet. The Video app has a new trick when the D3 is flipped (ff/rw buttons reverse). Still too expensive with no app store and no local network streaming (Home Sharing on the iPod Touch, and available on the Archos android players). The UI is much more fluid now, but still hesitates when the media database decides to update.
My full review: [Google search for 4dthinker]
4D
At the time of this review my D3 had (Korean) firmware 1.27 on it. The latest North America version was 3.25.
Update 2/10/2011: Cowon updated the firmware today, and with version 3.27 on my D3 the audio cut-out seems to have been eliminated.
Update 2/16/2011: Cowon updated the firmware again, to 1.29 (Korean). I expect the U.S. version (3.29) in a day or two. Now up to 9 home pages. Updates to the Music app including album art support for FLAC files. Still no gapless playback. Still the occasional bug playing music.
Update 3/12/2011: Cowon updated the firmware again. I've got version 3.31 on mine now. The Music app seems to be fixed except for no gapless playback yet. The Video app has a new trick when the D3 is flipped (ff/rw buttons reverse). Still too expensive with no app store and no local network streaming (Home Sharing on the iPod Touch, and available on the Archos android players). The UI is much more fluid now, but still hesitates when the media database decides to update.
My full review: [Google search for 4dthinker]
4D
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful
By Capnmcorn
Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a niche product. It runs on android. That doesn't mean its usefulness has to be measured by its ability to play fruit ninja. This is NOT a gaming/internet browsing/email reading tiny computer that happens to be more expensive and slower than other tiny android/apple products. This is an audio/video player that is so high-end that it has the processing power to run android and a slew of android apps.
Those apps are not it's main selling point, nor it's main redeeming feature. They are a nifty plus that make you feel better about getting a media player instead of a fancy phone.
UPDATE: Now it does all that app/internet/gaming stuff pretty well too since it got updated to Android 2.3.
The Cowon D3 is about as good as it gets for both sound and video. The audio quality is amazing, loads of formats are supported, and it can be tweaked with BBE settings and an equalizer. The video quality is amazing too. The D3 has a beautiful amoled screen, enough supported codecs to make it very unlikely that you will have to convert a video, and it plays in full HD resolution smoothly. This makes it even less necessary to convert videos, and with a separate cable you can output the awesomeness via HDMI. The built-in internet browser doesn't play flash videos. Instead, those are opened in the JetVD program. Jetvd plays youtube HD video beautifully. I'm really impressed with its quality and ability to play nice with the browser.
The D3 has had several firmware updates, and they make a huge difference. All the professional reviews out there now for the D3 complain of its sluggishness. With the new firmware it isn't sluggish at all. It isn't silky smooth in all things like a true android tablet, but it flows smoothly through audio, video, most non-game apps, and its own interface. This isn't just low standards on my part, I tried the firmware it came with for a while (3.25) and it was painful. Lag galore and it would randomly lock up and need reset. I would have sent it back if firmware 3.31 wasn't already out, 3.31 fixed the lag and lockups (all of them, I haven't had any since upgrading). Plus, 3.33 is out in Korea. It will be on the Cowon english site in a few days, and there is no reason to believe it's the last to come.
The interface is heavily modified by Cowon. It sets the D3 apart and emphasizes the fact that it isn't primarily a tiny tablet. It works as a tiny tablet though, thats what you pay extra for over Cowons last model, J3, which is purely a media player. The D3 runs most apps that are not CPU-intensive. It's terrible with games, just terrible, but I have unit converters, alternative keyboards, app stores, calculators, fring, wifi analyzer, a to-do list widget, and a bubble level that uses the accelerometer installed. They all run flawlessly. Some of the apps were made by Cowon specifically for the D3, like the impressive music player and the snazzy clock on the home page.
This is an opinion that won't be shared by everyone, but I think the D3 looks more sleek and professional than any phone or apple device I've seen. And I find that the unique interface has the same slickness. It also feels pretty sturdy.
In a nutshell, if you are shopping for an android tablet to horse around with, this is a very pricy, sub-optimal choice.(UPDATE: now it's much better for this) You'd be more impressed by a cheaper Archos tablet or a fancy phone. But if you wan't an audio/video player that reeks of quality and can also run handy android apps and surf the internet, this is about the only option that has its priorities lined up in that order.
If you were to buy just about any other android device, you would almost certainly gain processing speed and gaming ability. You would also certainly lose sound quality, video quality, dedicated media buttons, and the unique interface. By far the closest competitor to the D3 (Archos 43) has an inferior touchscreen (resistive, not multitouch), inferior viewing screen (LCD), inferior sound quality, lacks media enhancement tech (BBE and JetVD), Inferior build solidity, a fairly generic android interface, and it looks like a toy with its prominent pasticy rounded ends. But...you can play fruit ninja with it.
UPDATE: The Cowon D3 got an update to Android 2.3 and I am happy to announce that it can now play fruit ninja perfectly. Overall, the D3 is much quicker, and is now a capable internet and horsing-around device. Now there is less of a compromise between multi-tasking fluff and supreme audio/video quality, because the D3 does both.
Those apps are not it's main selling point, nor it's main redeeming feature. They are a nifty plus that make you feel better about getting a media player instead of a fancy phone.
UPDATE: Now it does all that app/internet/gaming stuff pretty well too since it got updated to Android 2.3.
The Cowon D3 is about as good as it gets for both sound and video. The audio quality is amazing, loads of formats are supported, and it can be tweaked with BBE settings and an equalizer. The video quality is amazing too. The D3 has a beautiful amoled screen, enough supported codecs to make it very unlikely that you will have to convert a video, and it plays in full HD resolution smoothly. This makes it even less necessary to convert videos, and with a separate cable you can output the awesomeness via HDMI. The built-in internet browser doesn't play flash videos. Instead, those are opened in the JetVD program. Jetvd plays youtube HD video beautifully. I'm really impressed with its quality and ability to play nice with the browser.
The D3 has had several firmware updates, and they make a huge difference. All the professional reviews out there now for the D3 complain of its sluggishness. With the new firmware it isn't sluggish at all. It isn't silky smooth in all things like a true android tablet, but it flows smoothly through audio, video, most non-game apps, and its own interface. This isn't just low standards on my part, I tried the firmware it came with for a while (3.25) and it was painful. Lag galore and it would randomly lock up and need reset. I would have sent it back if firmware 3.31 wasn't already out, 3.31 fixed the lag and lockups (all of them, I haven't had any since upgrading). Plus, 3.33 is out in Korea. It will be on the Cowon english site in a few days, and there is no reason to believe it's the last to come.
The interface is heavily modified by Cowon. It sets the D3 apart and emphasizes the fact that it isn't primarily a tiny tablet. It works as a tiny tablet though, thats what you pay extra for over Cowons last model, J3, which is purely a media player. The D3 runs most apps that are not CPU-intensive. It's terrible with games, just terrible, but I have unit converters, alternative keyboards, app stores, calculators, fring, wifi analyzer, a to-do list widget, and a bubble level that uses the accelerometer installed. They all run flawlessly. Some of the apps were made by Cowon specifically for the D3, like the impressive music player and the snazzy clock on the home page.
This is an opinion that won't be shared by everyone, but I think the D3 looks more sleek and professional than any phone or apple device I've seen. And I find that the unique interface has the same slickness. It also feels pretty sturdy.
In a nutshell, if you are shopping for an android tablet to horse around with, this is a very pricy, sub-optimal choice.(UPDATE: now it's much better for this) You'd be more impressed by a cheaper Archos tablet or a fancy phone. But if you wan't an audio/video player that reeks of quality and can also run handy android apps and surf the internet, this is about the only option that has its priorities lined up in that order.
If you were to buy just about any other android device, you would almost certainly gain processing speed and gaming ability. You would also certainly lose sound quality, video quality, dedicated media buttons, and the unique interface. By far the closest competitor to the D3 (Archos 43) has an inferior touchscreen (resistive, not multitouch), inferior viewing screen (LCD), inferior sound quality, lacks media enhancement tech (BBE and JetVD), Inferior build solidity, a fairly generic android interface, and it looks like a toy with its prominent pasticy rounded ends. But...you can play fruit ninja with it.
UPDATE: The Cowon D3 got an update to Android 2.3 and I am happy to announce that it can now play fruit ninja perfectly. Overall, the D3 is much quicker, and is now a capable internet and horsing-around device. Now there is less of a compromise between multi-tasking fluff and supreme audio/video quality, because the D3 does both.
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
By _adrianv
Amazon Verified Purchase
UPDATE (06-11-2011): The software-related issues described below in my original review have been greatly improved upon with the recent update to an Android Gingerbread-based firmware version. Speed, for me at least, is no longer an issue on the D3; though there are still some software bugs to work out.
Think of the Cowon D3 as a great multimedia system, not an Android device. After all, if you've owned past Cowon devices, what have you appreciated them for?
As a multimedia player, the sound and the video that come from it are great - that doesn't need repeating as it's expected.
As an Android device, it is okay. Perhaps Cowon made the D3 with Android to feed the open community that always developed custom things for other Cowon devices anyway. The OS helps make the device that much more flexible and gives it more potential for other uses, but out-of-the-box, it's not an impressive Android device. But, I can live with that seeing as my past experience with other multimedia devices left me pretty indifferent about the "apps"; I never used them.
In playing around with the Android OS, it really does seem like the D3's greatest faults are software-related. The unresponsiveness of the music application at times can get frustrating (going to the list menu of tracks, occasional cut-outs, playback delay when scrolling through a song, the tiny gap between songs), but it seems like a good software revision can clean up all of these issues in the music app.
I'm assuming the in-house battery tests had the D3 "always awake" because I've been able to last over two days at work playing a mixture of OGG, MP3, and FLAC files without needing to charge it (turning off wi-fi, keeping the device in standby while listening to music, and pausing it when away from my desk all help). Compared to past Cowon devices, the battery life is shorter, but compared to other Android devices, the battery life is very comparable.
Also in comparing it to other Android devices, you'll also find that the price, while seemingly high for a multimedia player, is pretty fair compared to the $500+ that most Android smartphones average at retail; the D3 is simply missing camera and phone components.
If you're looking for a great multimedia device, don't let the battery woes, which are a bit unfair, and the "sluggish" remarks (this is at the least fixable) turn you away. The device just came out, and like all Cowon early-adopters know, it's a bit of a beta test, but the payback is proving to be worth it.
Think of the Cowon D3 as a great multimedia system, not an Android device. After all, if you've owned past Cowon devices, what have you appreciated them for?
As a multimedia player, the sound and the video that come from it are great - that doesn't need repeating as it's expected.
As an Android device, it is okay. Perhaps Cowon made the D3 with Android to feed the open community that always developed custom things for other Cowon devices anyway. The OS helps make the device that much more flexible and gives it more potential for other uses, but out-of-the-box, it's not an impressive Android device. But, I can live with that seeing as my past experience with other multimedia devices left me pretty indifferent about the "apps"; I never used them.
In playing around with the Android OS, it really does seem like the D3's greatest faults are software-related. The unresponsiveness of the music application at times can get frustrating (going to the list menu of tracks, occasional cut-outs, playback delay when scrolling through a song, the tiny gap between songs), but it seems like a good software revision can clean up all of these issues in the music app.
I'm assuming the in-house battery tests had the D3 "always awake" because I've been able to last over two days at work playing a mixture of OGG, MP3, and FLAC files without needing to charge it (turning off wi-fi, keeping the device in standby while listening to music, and pausing it when away from my desk all help). Compared to past Cowon devices, the battery life is shorter, but compared to other Android devices, the battery life is very comparable.
Also in comparing it to other Android devices, you'll also find that the price, while seemingly high for a multimedia player, is pretty fair compared to the $500+ that most Android smartphones average at retail; the D3 is simply missing camera and phone components.
If you're looking for a great multimedia device, don't let the battery woes, which are a bit unfair, and the "sluggish" remarks (this is at the least fixable) turn you away. The device just came out, and like all Cowon early-adopters know, it's a bit of a beta test, but the payback is proving to be worth it.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Good Mp3 for the price
Received item in good packaging condition and start using it with the included apps. The design of this Mp3 is very good and the interface is excellent compared to other Mp3. Read more
Published 3 days ago by Luis O. Olitoquit
A Piece of Crap - Don't Spend Your Money
You will not find any usable instructions with this thing - you'll have to read on-line reviews and blogs to figure out how to work it. Read more
Published 4 days ago by William H. Thompson
Do you care about audio quality?
I first got into the mp3 player world back in 2006 when I bought a Creative Zen Touch 20GB. I've purchased 3 other creatives since then. Read more
Published 19 days ago by Bob
Cowon D3 Plenue 32 Gb
Very good player! Excellent sound! I bought the other headphones. I think it needs some cover.
I'm very pleased! I recommend you buy this player!
I'm very pleased! I recommend you buy this player!
Published 24 days ago by Dmitry
The bad press is true...
First off- I love the Cowon products I have owned in the past and still frequently use my i9. I also love my android phone (Atrix 4G). Read more
Published 1 month ago by dervogel
Nice Device
This is my 3rd Cowon media player. Cowon has the best players on the market. I bought this one at a reduced price. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Andrew Becker
Great player, but
Pros: This player provides very good sound quality!
Cons: Android settings are not intuitive. Read more
Cons: Android settings are not intuitive. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Alex
The USB stopped working one day
I am so disappointed in this player. It takes a long time to start-up (more than 30 seconds), the default music player can't play my FLAC files tagged with images (I had to... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Concerned But Powerless
I really like it
The price has dropped on the D3, the quality of sound is the best in the industry and video is excellent. These are the reasons I chose the D3 rather than the ipod. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Paul
Happy but frustrated!
I love my new D3, it sounds amazing and that is first and foremost what I wanted in my new player. The problem is that there is so little documentation on the D3 in the owner's... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Robert K. Kotzbacher
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