Cowon D3 Plenue. Review. With Photos. - Page 4

Cowon made another update available today.  This is the North American, EU, and "other" versions x.29. 

My D3 with 3.29 has been playing through my music assortment for a couple of hours this morning.  So far there has only been one or two random audio blips.  Nothing repeatable, and easily far less frequently than with x.27.

Videos still play beautifully, but then they always did.   My HDMI cable should show up soon, so I'll run that through a few tests in the next day or two.  

The D3 still takes a long time to boot up, and with every boot up it takes another minute or so to update the database for both the onboard and microSD storage.  I've gotten in the habit of NOT turning it off, but rather (after closing all apps)  just double-pressing the power button to lock and turn off the screen. The D3 then wakes up in a second and won't nag for database checking.

3.29 benefits from no Korean apps (in 1.29), one of which was often self-starting and a resource consumer.  It will still gets very hot when taxed with a graphics-heavy game.  For just music play it only needs gapless playback and then they (Cowon) could consider themselves done with it.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by skoog5600 

Big improvement or little one.
 

@DreamThinker: It may not have started out as their strategy, but was quickly ordered up when the initial firmware met critical reviewers. Better than leaving the D3 out there to flounder for a month or more before a "desperate" rescue attempt could be made.  Personally, I'm enjoying the updates.  They've even improved the features set as they've gone along. It started with 5 home screens, but now you can set the number up to 9, and choose which of them you want it to go to when you press the Home button. They also added a two-finger spread to the video now-playing screen that lets you stretch video (to fit the screen) as it is playing.

@Macrocheesium: Angry Birds plays the same.  Still empty white boxes in place of text that should be appearing. The D3 also gets hot fast when it plays.

4D 

1080p yes.  I only have a couple of samples at that resolution though.

No app store, but if you can find them on the web it is easy enough to side load them to the D3 when hooked up to a PC.

SQ?  No easily.  Without a way to swtch quickly beteen the device playing the same song at the same time, my ears have to rely on impressions remembered from the last time I listened to a device. In general my J3 and D3 are better to my ears than my 4th gebTouch. Between the Cowons is a wash.  If I'm not looking, it is easy to forget which I'm listening to. The J3 gets a slide nod for gapless play of concert albums though.

Fast?  Again it is hard to compare them side-by side, as they would both be using the same WiFi access, and any difference may be thanks to my router and not the browsers themselves. Safari on the Touch shows less info on a screen thanks to the persistant bottom control bar left on the screen. Pages appear to load at about the same speed. Dynamic scroll on the D3 is different than on the Touch, with Safari only moving the page as your finger moves, and breaking the scroll quicker when you've swiped. On long web pages, like that on my blog, this is a pain.  It takes several swipes (13) to get down to the comments on my D3 review with Safari and only a couple of swipes (2) with the D3.  

4D

 

@ Dreamthinker:  Headfi.org loads up completely without crashing on my D3.  Both the home page and this forum.

Generally it multitasks as well as any other android device I have.  Music will keep playing while I check my email, etc..   I did notice some momentary pauses when playing over bluetooth and using WiFi for web browsing or email together. I'll guess both radios use the same chip.

Apps I've put on mind were either found with simple Google searches or I had on my PC from backups of my Hero Phone.

How sensitive?  Both it and the Touch are capacitive, and seem to react the same to my touch.  The D3 is a fraction slower to respond though. It's not the sensing that differs, it is the software deciding what to do with the touch that differs.

If you meant the other kind of sensitive, then the D3 doesn't appear sensitive at all.   I've cursed at mine several times, and it doesn't appear to have had its feeling hurt.   ;)