[Mediaogre]

It does. A quick press puts it in hold mode.
 
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I am fairly sure that the Power Switch doubles as a Hold Switch as well.

 

[jj94]

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It does. A quick press puts it in hold mode.
 

 

And two quick presses put it in hold plus turn the screen off.

 

[Mediaogre]

Ah-ha! Thanks for the battery preservation tip, man!
 
Quote:

And two quick presses put it in hold plus turn the screen off.

 

[dfkt]

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Is navigation better than previous models? I found the navigation on previous of them pretty dumb unless you flash skinned them. When you went to music it would go to your last song instead of your folder for music.

Cowon really got their act together with the J3 UI/navigation, in my opinion. It's a bit easier and more natural to use than the S9, and it's no comparison to their older players like the D2, or their awful PMPs.
 
If you want to directly browse files/tags, just do it via the browser menu, not via the music menu. The J3 is also the first Cowon that has a search-by-letter function (that works for both, file/folder- and ID3-browsing).

 

[rawrster]

Quote:

Cowon really got their act together with the J3 UI/navigation, in my opinion. It's a bit easier and more natural to use than the S9, and it's no comparison to their older players like the D2, or their awful PMPs.
 
If you want to directly browse files/tags, just do it via the browser menu, not via the music menu. The J3 is also the first Cowon that has a search-by-letter function (that works for both, file/folder- and ID3-browsing).

That's all I needed to hear I'm glad they finally worked on their navigation. I had no idea what they were thinking when I owned the D2. I guess I'll make up my mind if I want a 16gb for 240 or a 8gb plus 16gb microsdhc for around the same

 

[SoulSyde]

So, I'm the creator of this thread and I have yet to pull the trigger on purchasing this unit.  With a 5-month old in our life my attention has been a bit diverted.
 
I'm just about ready to buy one and I have a few quick questions for those of you who have played with the J3 over the past few months:
 
-- File System: If I have songs saved to the on-board memory and the MicroSD card, will the file system lump them all together when searching for: Song, Album, Artist, etc.?  Or, is searching and Album/Artist/Song sorting kept separate between both storage mediums?
 
-- How good is the ID3 tagging?
 
-- How well does the J3 pickup embedded album art?

 

[dfkt]

Answered the first question some pages ago: in file/folder browsing mode the internal memory and SD card are separate, in tag browsing mode they're combined.
 
What do you mean? It reads ID3 tags perfectly fine. My files are tagged with Tag&Rename, and there's not a single issue.
 
Embedded album art is no problem either, no matter what file size the embedded art is.

 

[SoulSyde]

Thanks for the quick response dfkt.  You the man!

 

[dfkt]

You're welcome.
 
To further elaborate on ID3 tag capabilities of the J3: I believe I read some people ran into sorting issues with track number tags like 1/10, 2/10, etc... - if you use standard 01, 02, etc for track tags, there are no issues. Also, for the iPod crowd - the J3 doesn't read the "album artist" tag, so that might give some issues for classical albums and such (only iPods understands that tag, to the best of my knowledge - no other player does).

 

[rawrster]

Just out of curiosity any idea when your review on the J3 will be out? Not that it would influence me in any way unless you absolutely trash it and I haven't gotten it by then.

 

[dfkt]

Yeah right, I will review it like I did with the AMP3.
 
The J3 is the best thing ever to come out of South Korea, and it really makes me not miss Rockbox at all, despite my compulsive stubbornness regarding certain aspects of an "open" player, like MSC, gapless, file/folder, Replaygain, Last-fm scrobbling, pan/balance, good EQ, etc - the J3 fulfills pretty much all relevant aspects for me - and it's blingy-yet-professional, which doesn't hurt either.

 

[SoulSyde]

Quote:

You're welcome.
 
To further elaborate on ID3 tag capabilities of the J3: I believe I read some people ran into sorting issues with track number tags like 1/10, 2/10, etc... - if you use standard 01, 02, etc for track tags, there are no issues. Also, for the iPod crowd - the J3 doesn't read the "album artist" tag, so that might give some issues for classical albums and such (only iPods understands that tag, to the best of my knowledge - no other player does).

I don't think that will be a problem for me.  After ditching Apple months ago in favor of Sansa devices I switched to MediaMonkey.  In the process I had to clean up a lot of my music - 80GB in fact.  Track tags are all clean and I don't really rely on "Album Artist" tagging.  Thanks again.

 

[Blisse]

Quote:

Yeah right, I will review it like I did with the AMP3.
 
The J3 is the best thing ever to come out of South Korea, and it really makes me not miss Rockbox at all, despite my compulsive stubbornness regarding certain aspects of an "open" player, like MSC, gapless, file/folder, Replaygain, Last-fm scrobbling, pan/balance, good EQ, etc - the J3 fulfills pretty much all relevant aspects for me - and it's blingy-yet-professional, which doesn't hurt either.

You said that it doesn't read the Album Artist tag, yes, but neither does iTunes in my experience. Is there a way for iTunes to read it? And what does it use in place of Album Artist? The BAND tag? Too much of my music is reliant on the Album Artist tags to afford a player without them. My iPod has failed me thus far and I'm looking to replace.

 

[JosephKim]

hi im wondering if theres any dap that has sound quality of j3 without any video. I really dont need a dap with video capability.

 

[SoulSyde]

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hi im wondering if theres any dap that has sound quality of j3 without any video. I really dont need a dap with video capability.

Look at the rest of Cowon/iAudio's product line.