Cowon A2 (30GB)
The good: 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. It 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.
The bad: The Cowon A2 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 doesn't ship with a remote control and lacks a removable battery, unlike its chief competitor, the Archos AV500.
The bottom line: The Cowon A2 is a sleek portable video player with a bright, wide-screen color LCD, as well as full multimedia recording and playback capabilities, but it's not the most efficient device. Plus, it's in desperate need of Windows Media DRM 10 (Janus) compatibility.
Photo by CNET Networks
