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Cowon D3 Plenue. Review. With Photos.
Mar 18, 2011 at 3:41 AM Post #151 of 479
Mar 18, 2011 at 5:58 PM Post #152 of 479
The D3s processor runs at 750 MHz, and although it's no Snapdragon that's a lot of juice for a portable media player. The lag, as I see it, must have it's cause in sloppy firmware or a lack of RAM, or probably a combination of the two. I read somewhere that the D3 suffered from low RAM. Why Cowon would pass a product with such an obvious hardware flaw is beyond me. I do however believe that most of the lag can be resolved with firmware updates and the way I see it, this and the current lack of gapless playback is the only thing stopping it from world domination. Seriously - the huge, high-resolution AMOLED touchscreen, seamless drag-and-drop 1080p HD video support, famous Cowon audio quality and BBE sound enhancements IN COMBINATION with the Android OS makes it pretty much the perfect PMP - I wasn't even sure if getting good sound out of Android was possible, but Cowon proved us wrong. A lot of great Android apps could potentially work on this device, even if that won't be the reason most of us buy it. It's just a very welcome bonus.
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Disregarding the lag, there are few, if any other media players offering this kind of high-resolution AMOLED screen, 1080p HD support and audio quality, and certainly none with BBE+.
 
The screen, true HD support and audio quality alone, as well as the unusual design and tactile buttons, would make it worth the price tag  if some of the lag could be fixed. If it's an unresolvable hardware problem, I might still consider buying it, just because it's so awesomely Cowon. And the rest of you will only have to wait for a D3+.
 
Mar 18, 2011 at 10:52 PM Post #155 of 479
The only Android device that could rival it in terms of screen and resolution is the Samsung Galaxy S II, but although it's AMOLED (Super AMOLED Plus) technology is more advanced, you won't get the tactile controls, you won't get the TV out, you won't get the BBE (although Samsung's Galaxy phones have been known for using premium-quality Wolfson DACs), you won't get the digital line-out, you probably won't get the seamless 1080p playback, it's WAY more expensive, you'll risk being interrupted by calls etc. AND, above all ... it's not made by Cowon.
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Also it is one of the world's best smartphones. Bearing this in mind I'd say the D3 stacks up pretty well, if not for the lag; with a faster performance and gapless playback, it would be one of the most powerful pocket-sized PMPs in the world, if not THE most powerful. It's file format support is even broader than the J3s and at least on par with the Galaxy S. I hear H.264 is no longer a problem.
 
Mar 19, 2011 at 8:33 AM Post #158 of 479
OK, 720; maybe it's underclocked, or maybe I remembered wrong. I read it somewhere on the web. It seems to make sense to me, though. The Telechips processor needs more RAM in order to play some of the popular games like Angry Birds, but I have to revise my point; I've read that it's not simply because of a lack of RAM, but because these applications weren't designed for the D3 infrastructure. Which gives me more hope about the lag issues being resolved in the future, as for example Android 2.2 FroYo reportedly is designed to work better with the Telechips infrastructure. And I don't care too much about apps, anyway. Cowon officials have posted a bunch of them that are supposed to work with the D3 in the ABI Forums, so if I wanna try something out I just go there. Fruit ninja works, too - why would I need anything more than that?
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I just want to make sure no one sits around thinking the D3 is 'weak'. 720 MHz is A LOT. The HTC Legend, HTC Gratia and BlackBerry Torch smartphones run at 600 MHz, and there are others that run at 500 MHz with no lag.
 
Mar 19, 2011 at 10:38 AM Post #159 of 479
How exactly did Cowon treat Android updates on the D2/D2+? There's all these remarks about when or if the D3 will be updated from 2.1, but my impression so far in regards to the D3 has been that Cowon's tinkered with the install so much that they probably wouldn't bother moving to Froyo or beyond.
 
And on a side note, I eagerly await the second look at Rockbox. I think I've decided at this point that if Rockbox gives me gapless, I'm just gonna take the plunge.
 
Mar 20, 2011 at 2:28 PM Post #163 of 479
No telling what the J3 ran at unless you want to open one up. You can't just install an app on it to have it report the specs. 
 
No point in comparing the D3 and J3 CPU speeds as far as I can tell because they are two different beasts running two different operating systems. Clock speed isn't very relative these days unless the comparison is between the same chip running at different speeds. With variable amounts of cache and system RAM, and different hardware (screen, radios, etc..) being supported  even the same chip at the same speed would perform differently. 
 
Mar 20, 2011 at 4:42 PM Post #164 of 479
this means that j3 is not necesarly faster as chip speed, but it's chip is doing very well it's job.... because faster is not really better, when no apps are invovled.... for example old phones, even new ones, with qwerty, have 100-200 Mhz chips, and they perform very well, because they have just simple things to do.... decoding flacs, or videos at not a very high resolution do not needs much speed..... and as the equalizer is a chip itself,.... j3 can be as slow as it wants..... as long as it works my music sooooo gooood......
 
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