Cowon S9 caught on video

I wasn't blown away by the photos that surfaced earlier this week of the upcoming Cowon S9 media player's touch-screen interface. Today, we've got a video of the S9 interface in action, showing off an encouraging amount of system responsiveness and graphic user-interface sophistication.

Despite the S9's advantages of Bluetooth, advanced EQ, and all-around impressive codec support, I still feel that the S9's similarity to the iPod Touch comes off more like a flattering imitation than an exciting alternative.

That said, people have fallen in love with products like the Samsung P2, which has a touch-screen interface I still find a little clunky. If this video is any indication, the folks at Cowon have done well to value the responsiveness of the S9's touch screen. This is also the first time I've ever seen Cowon sweat the small details of their GUI, bringing animated screen transitions into play and having a little fun with the way the main menu icons drop into place.

[Rohou]

If only they had this when my brother bought his about a month ago. HE went through a great hassle to activate his.

[Platinum_Prince]

Here we go again with those biased comments from one of the apple fanboys at cnet. When would you give any mp3 other than an ipod credit for a good ui, and something that that an ipod doesn't have - excellent sound quality? Cowon is renowned for great sound quality in their mp3 players. Ipod has mediocre to good sound at best.
Here's a suggestion, any mp3 or pvp that is not an ipod, have a cnet editor who is not partial to any band of player, especially apple, to review that product. There are mp3 players out there that have way better quality in every department than an ipod. Let them be known!

[coheeed2113]

i like you platinum_prince.you sir are not an ipod fan boy and you know there are better mp3 players out there. i myself have a samusung p2 and hope to get the p3 when it comes out.i agree with you the ipod does not have good sound quality at all sure it has alot of different apps on it but when it really comes down to it what do you want on an mp3 player apps or sound quality?for me its sound quality and thats why i stay away from ipods

[SilenceofAzns]

If you were at all familiar with Bell's work, you'd know that he isn't the Apple fanboy you make him out to be.

I know you don't want to be seen as a sheep, and I understand. I am extremely happy with my Gigabeat S60, Creative Stone, and Cowon D2. However, after looking at the video of the S9 in action, I would have to agree with Bell saying that the user interface seems like an iPod Touch imitation. Where's Cowon's creativity from the iAudio 7 and D2? To be fair, I'd say there aren't many ways to change a touch screen interface. I thought that font size slider was a pretty nifty feature though.

I've never owned an iPod and I probably never will, but even I admit that the success of the line is even fractionally due to the fact that it's good, not only because of the iPod bandwagon.

[7dee]

I so agree. CNET just never fails to disappoint on PMP reviews... At first I thought it was just bummer if they once again trounced another holy grail of MP3 players simply because it was not an IPod... But now it is getting downright annoying. Surely you, as the "senior editor for MP3 players" should know more about the technical differences between an iPod and a Cowon, especially the S9?

But back to why I like this more than the Ipod Touch: I love the Touch's features. However: I buy an MP3 player for primarily these reasons:
- Have the best sound quality ever (cowon wins hands down)
- Have BUTTONS :) I want to be able to activate/deactivate/skip track etc all from my pocket. To make a device that is screen-only is nothing but regression to me.

[DarkHawke]

Don, you already mentioned the exciting aspects of this unit. Decent Bluetooth support, near universal codec support AND an iPod Touch interface? What's not to rave about?

[kalmo]

Don, I'm playing with this toy right now and it seems COWON did pretty good job here.
If I'm not wrong you will got your toy soon from Francis. Hope you like it too.

- Digihunter -

[kingrah1]

interface looks really laggy, i prefer smoothness of apple

[coheeed2113]

i think ipod's success is bandwagon though because people dont even think to look at other mp3 players they think that ipod is all there is so thats what they go with.i really spent time looking at other mp3 players when i decided to get one.i finally decided that the samsung k3 was a very good music player better than the nano in my opinion and i really like the sound quality samung had to offer and when they came out with the p2 i was really happy it was touch.people need to learn to research mp3 players and not just go with the ipod because thats all they think there is