Cowon Q5W pricing and U.S. availability

The mothership approaches.

(Credit: Cowon America, Inc.)

Cowon America has officially announced that the specs for their long-awaited ubergadget, the Cowon Q5W (formerly the Cowon Q5), will be identical to the specs on the version released in Asia. The Cowon Q5W should be available in the states by the end of November (next week). The Cowon Q5W (the extra "W" denotes its wireless capabilities) will retail for $549.99 (40GB) and $599.00 (60GB). That may seem pricey compared to the latest generation of Archos PVPs, but one look at the Cowon Q5W's specs and you'll realize that the gadget is on another planet entirely. Honestly, it sounds more like a UMPC than a MP3 player.

The Cowon Q5W delivers a 5-inch TFT touch screen with an 800x480 resolution and a 500:1 contrast ratio, along with 802.11g/b Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0, a Windows CE 5.0 operating system, and more file format support than you can shake a stick at (DivX, XviD, MPEG4, WMV7/8/9, MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, Wave, FLAC, APE, and MusePack... phew!). One of the cooler, little-known features on the Cowon Q5W, is direct-from-camera importing of NEF (Nikon RAW) images (as well as more standard JPEG images), making it a cool option offloading digital photos on the go. I was also surprised to find that the Q5W includes component, composite, and S-Video outputs for hooking the device up to a TV.

Stay tuned for more coverage next week when we actually have one to play with.

[precise]

Beauty & Memory, WOW!!

Finally a beautiful PMP with some storage. I'm sorry but Apple dropped the ball with the iPod touch in the storage dept. Every thing about it is great, but I dont need it so thin. It could've been a 1/4" thicker and touting 80gigs. I would buy that @ $400.00. It should clearly be their flagship iPod long side with the iPhone, but it's just more frustration wondering how long should I wait for that perfect PMP? Maybe the Q5W is the one.

[DarkHawke]

Been waiting for this bad boy since CES!

I was very psyched when I first heard about it from the CNET CES video, and of course greatly chagrined when I heard through the grapevine that it might not be out till next year! Now it's coming out THIS week? Well, I'm gonna wait till the reviews come in before I jump, but damned if this isn't STILL exciting news! The only thing that gave me pause from the original specs was the weight, over 13 ounces, which is kinda weighty to be slinging around on a daily basis, so I hope it'll be lighter than that. But even in the post iPhone/iPod Touch world, this looks like a strong challenger if only because it brings hard drive storage capacities to the table, albeit its interface probably won't be as slick. Ahm crossin' mah fingers and hopin' hard this'll turn out to be all it seems!

[suchinlee]

Review coming Monday

We will be getting a review unit in today (Friday 11/30/07). Will be posting unboxing photos later today. The review should be ready by Monday. Look for it on http://gadgetaholic.com

[couldbee]

post a real review and NOT an overview

There are way too many (useless) overview articles and exactly zero reviews.

step up cnet

[sammyb33]

Should maybe update this posting with an actual review? Could link to the actual review because this is kind of useless. Myspace Stuff<a href="http://www.grandprofile.com>Glitter Graphics

[sammyb33]

Should maybe update this posting with an actual review? Could link to the actual review because this is kind of useless. Glitter Graphics