leblabbiy
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2010
- Posts
- 38
- Likes
- 10
was actually torn between this player and the V5 but I got the O2 to save money.
The 32GB V5 was $340 at that time (It's down to $310 on Amazon now. Guess what I'm buying next)
The 32GTB O2 was $244. I also got a 32GB SDHC card for $95 giving me a total of 64GB storage. This might sound like a lot of storage but I've got almost 700GB of music.
Size
about 3" X 41/2"
Weight
I don't have a scale but it feels fairly heavy and solid
Build quality
Very good. I haven't noticed any looseness squeaks flexes or anything else alarming
Screen
The resolution is lower than the V5 but it looks fine to me. One reviewer claimed that the screen was very unresponsive but Ihaven't seen any of that. One quirk that I ave noticed is how you need to use the screen. First of all remember that this is a resistive screen not a resistive screen. Second I've found that quick firm taps work best. I've had an HTC Imagio for about 6 months so using a resistive screen is second nature to me. Of course YMMV...
Boot Speed
About 7 seconds from the time that you slide switch until the menu is displayed
The interface
This is what turns off more people than anything else and I will be the first to admit that the interface can be...irritating (
) at times.
When you first boot up the device you get the primary menu screen which consists of 5 icons. Videos Music Pictures Documents and Recent files.
From the main menu -
Pressing the up arrow takes you to the settings menu
isplay Sound Video Music and Recorder.
Pressing the up arrow again takes you to a second content/application menu :Browser Comics Recorder Timer and User Programs.
Pressing the up arrow again takes you back to the main menu.
From the main menu
Pressing the down ar takes you directly to the secondary content/application menu.
Pressing the down arrow again takes you to the settings menu
File browser
I (mostly) like the file browser but that's me
The O2 uses folders and sub-folders just like Windows.
From the main menu press the Music icon and you are presented with an alphabetical list of folders. Tapping on the folder name opens it revealing whatever files/folders are inside (Yes you can have folders inside folders inside folders if you want).
The biggest problem with this setup is the irritating moronic way they programmed the back button yo function.
Tap on a folder to open it. Press the back button and guess where you go? Back to the main menu! not back to the root folder not back to the root of your music folder back to the main menu! what?!
What I discovered after playing with it for a while is this: Tap on a folder to open it. Your location is listed in the bar at the top of the screen. Tap that screen and you go back to the root of your music (video etc) folder. There is a tiny (and hard to use without a stylus) up arrow at the bottom of the screen. Tapping this takes you up one folder level. Example: I tap the music icon. This takes me to the alphabetical list of all of those folders. I tap the Accept folder. That shows all of the files/folders inside the Accept folder. Tapping on any of those folders shows you the contents of that folder. Tapping the up arrow (if you can...) will take me back to the Accept folder. Tapping the up arrow again takes me back to the alphabetical listing.
Selecting items
You have to tap twice to activate any selections. This is a pain but it does result in a big benefit (in my opinion).
If you tap once on a folder to select it and tap the next to last icon on the right will open a sub menu that will allow you to play all of the files in that folder
File support
So far I have used it to play Ogg Vorbis from 320 kbps to 500 kbps
mp3 up to 320 kbps
WavPack lossless and at 600 kbps
Musepack at 270 kbps
It has played every mp4 video downloaded from youtube with no problem. Several AVI files played fine as well. I don't have any flash videos and the one 1280 X 720 file I tried to play didn't work too well. It looked great and it sounded great but the video played at about 1/2 speed
Sound quality
No complaints. Using Vmoda Vybe I and Ultrasone Pro 550 headphones everything sounds great to me.
Battery life
To be honest I haven't used it long enough to drain the battery completely so I can't comment there.
ID3 tag info
The O2 hardly acts like it knows what ID3 tags are. It will display album artist and title while playing but that's it folks.
You can not search using ID3 tags and you can not organize files using tags. None of that bothers me though because I would never use that capability anyway. All of the music on my computer is organized into folders and sub folders (A-Z then artist then album). The only thing part of that that really pissed me off was that the O2 will not display album covers (or any other image) imbedded into an audio file (Grrrrrrr......). f you want the O2 to display an image when you play a song you have to put that jpg file inside the folder and that image will display when any song inside that folder is played. I don't know what he size limit is but I've used files as large as 800 pixels with out any problem.
Additional Thoughts
The interface is a lot easier to navigate with a stylus. But don't waste your time trying to use the dingle dongle standie thingie that Cowon ships with the device. In a word it sucks. It's way too big to use as a stylus. It's so wide that it blocks your view of the on screen controls and you still end up hitting the wrong button. It's also extremely awkward to use because it only has the stylus point at one end. Do yourself a favor and get a cell phone or Nintendo DS stylus
I'm also getting a little tired of the main memory & SD card not showing up together when I connect the O2 to my computer. It would be a lot easier to manage my music if they would both show up at the same time. If you're managing the main memory and want to switch to the SD card you have to eject the O2 unplug it turn it back on (It turns itself off when you unplug it) plug it back in and then choose SD card when the dialog box pops up. Unless you want to format the card in the O2 and then use A card reader to transfer media onto it.
The 32GB V5 was $340 at that time (It's down to $310 on Amazon now. Guess what I'm buying next)
The 32GTB O2 was $244. I also got a 32GB SDHC card for $95 giving me a total of 64GB storage. This might sound like a lot of storage but I've got almost 700GB of music.
Size
about 3" X 41/2"
Weight
I don't have a scale but it feels fairly heavy and solid
Build quality
Very good. I haven't noticed any looseness squeaks flexes or anything else alarming
Screen
The resolution is lower than the V5 but it looks fine to me. One reviewer claimed that the screen was very unresponsive but Ihaven't seen any of that. One quirk that I ave noticed is how you need to use the screen. First of all remember that this is a resistive screen not a resistive screen. Second I've found that quick firm taps work best. I've had an HTC Imagio for about 6 months so using a resistive screen is second nature to me. Of course YMMV...
Boot Speed
About 7 seconds from the time that you slide switch until the menu is displayed
The interface
This is what turns off more people than anything else and I will be the first to admit that the interface can be...irritating (
When you first boot up the device you get the primary menu screen which consists of 5 icons. Videos Music Pictures Documents and Recent files.
From the main menu -
Pressing the up arrow takes you to the settings menu
isplay Sound Video Music and Recorder.Pressing the up arrow again takes you to a second content/application menu :Browser Comics Recorder Timer and User Programs.
Pressing the up arrow again takes you back to the main menu.
From the main menu
Pressing the down ar takes you directly to the secondary content/application menu.
Pressing the down arrow again takes you to the settings menu
File browser
I (mostly) like the file browser but that's me
The O2 uses folders and sub-folders just like Windows.
From the main menu press the Music icon and you are presented with an alphabetical list of folders. Tapping on the folder name opens it revealing whatever files/folders are inside (Yes you can have folders inside folders inside folders if you want).
The biggest problem with this setup is the irritating moronic way they programmed the back button yo function.
Tap on a folder to open it. Press the back button and guess where you go? Back to the main menu! not back to the root folder not back to the root of your music folder back to the main menu! what?!
What I discovered after playing with it for a while is this: Tap on a folder to open it. Your location is listed in the bar at the top of the screen. Tap that screen and you go back to the root of your music (video etc) folder. There is a tiny (and hard to use without a stylus) up arrow at the bottom of the screen. Tapping this takes you up one folder level. Example: I tap the music icon. This takes me to the alphabetical list of all of those folders. I tap the Accept folder. That shows all of the files/folders inside the Accept folder. Tapping on any of those folders shows you the contents of that folder. Tapping the up arrow (if you can...) will take me back to the Accept folder. Tapping the up arrow again takes me back to the alphabetical listing.
Selecting items
You have to tap twice to activate any selections. This is a pain but it does result in a big benefit (in my opinion).
If you tap once on a folder to select it and tap the next to last icon on the right will open a sub menu that will allow you to play all of the files in that folder
File support
So far I have used it to play Ogg Vorbis from 320 kbps to 500 kbps
mp3 up to 320 kbps
WavPack lossless and at 600 kbps
Musepack at 270 kbps
It has played every mp4 video downloaded from youtube with no problem. Several AVI files played fine as well. I don't have any flash videos and the one 1280 X 720 file I tried to play didn't work too well. It looked great and it sounded great but the video played at about 1/2 speed
Sound quality
No complaints. Using Vmoda Vybe I and Ultrasone Pro 550 headphones everything sounds great to me.
Battery life
To be honest I haven't used it long enough to drain the battery completely so I can't comment there.
ID3 tag info
The O2 hardly acts like it knows what ID3 tags are. It will display album artist and title while playing but that's it folks.
You can not search using ID3 tags and you can not organize files using tags. None of that bothers me though because I would never use that capability anyway. All of the music on my computer is organized into folders and sub folders (A-Z then artist then album). The only thing part of that that really pissed me off was that the O2 will not display album covers (or any other image) imbedded into an audio file (Grrrrrrr......). f you want the O2 to display an image when you play a song you have to put that jpg file inside the folder and that image will display when any song inside that folder is played. I don't know what he size limit is but I've used files as large as 800 pixels with out any problem.
Additional Thoughts
The interface is a lot easier to navigate with a stylus. But don't waste your time trying to use the dingle dongle standie thingie that Cowon ships with the device. In a word it sucks. It's way too big to use as a stylus. It's so wide that it blocks your view of the on screen controls and you still end up hitting the wrong button. It's also extremely awkward to use because it only has the stylus point at one end. Do yourself a favor and get a cell phone or Nintendo DS stylus
I'm also getting a little tired of the main memory & SD card not showing up together when I connect the O2 to my computer. It would be a lot easier to manage my music if they would both show up at the same time. If you're managing the main memory and want to switch to the SD card you have to eject the O2 unplug it turn it back on (It turns itself off when you unplug it) plug it back in and then choose SD card when the dialog box pops up. Unless you want to format the card in the O2 and then use A card reader to transfer media onto it.
