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| $154.99+ $6.49 *Shipping | Refurbished | | |
| $170.00+ $4.99 *Shipping | Used
- Good | | |
| $199.45 This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. | New | | |
| $199.45+ $9.95 *Shipping | New | | |
| New | |
| $199.45 This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. | New | | |
| $199.45+ $9.95 *Shipping | New | | |
| Used | |
| $170.00+ $4.99 *Shipping | Used
- Good | | |
| Refurbished | |
| $154.99+ $6.49 *Shipping | Refurbished | | |
| | Customer Reviews: | | | Average Customer Review: ( 54 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
32 of 32 found the following review helpful:
 great new player from Cowon May 21, 2010
By Daniel Gosling
"Dan24"
I owned the cowon x5L for nearly 4 years and was waiting for it to break OR for Cowon to
release a worthy player before I considered replacing it. While the S9 left me unimpressed
the new J3 is a superbly refined and well balanced player. Its size, build quality and, most importantly,
its UI are all testament to the development DAPs have undergone in the past 5 years.
The new Jet Effect 3.0 settings are great and provide alot more tweaks than the older versions.
Its screen and ease of use for photos are also big improvements.
The only two things I found a little problematic are inserting the microsd card...you need to really
push it in hard and this cannot be done with a finger unless you have a long nail, which i don't.
Also, I find the screen requires a little cleaning every day..but I think this is the norm for
touch screens these days and it really is not such a problem considering the plethora of benefits
it provides.
Sound Quality is superb, esp with jeteffect 3.0 turned on...and my flac files sound warm and full.
Compared to the x5 I feel i need to listen 5 higher on volume but still with 40 the max, there is
room to spare for that bit extra if you want to plug it into an amp.
Also, I must say that the Cowon software is a great asset for ripping cds as it is fast and
gives many more codec options than other programs.
All in all, thank you Cowon for this new player and for the key of balance and good design!
36 of 37 found the following review helpful:
Great player with some weaknesses Jun 08, 2010
By B. Simons
Overall, a very solid player with strengths and weaknesses that may make it more appropriate for some users than others.
Strengths:
- great sound quality relative to other mp3 players on the market, with lots of effective BBE enhancements for sound customization, great signal to noise ratio, and good signal output strength.
- microSD slot is a welcome addition. 16gb cards can now be found on ebay for about $25 (making the $60 difference between a 16 and 32gb player not a very good deal).
- you can manage files on the player as if it were a memory stick or portable hard drive. No need for proprietary software that tries to tell you how and when you can manage your files (#@*% I-tunes).
- allows you to browse by id3 tag or file name and location
- as said repeatedly, gorgeous AMOLED screen.
- fantastic battery life.
- recording capabilities
- extremely light
- very handy external volume, skip/seek buttons.
Weaknesses:
- the UI is good and very smooth and responsive, but the manual is far too thin. I still haven't figured out how to get subtitles to display in video.
- although it looks as though the case is brushed metal, only a little bit on the front is. The main case is plastic and easily scratched.
- although the glass seems to be fairly scratch resistant, there appears to be an antiglare coating that is not. You'll need a case or this player will look like crap in a very short period of time.
- another reviewer mentions that you need to push the microsd card in hard. This is not the case, but you do need to push it in very deep. This is a design flaw, as without a long fingernail you cannot change the card without a tool. Thought the card slot was faulty at first because the card wouldn't stay in.
- no WIFI
- no apps to speak of
- proprietary cable connections are annoying. If I ever lose the cable that came with the player I have to buy another one from Cowon, and I can't use the line in recording without buying a special cable. MicroUSB would have worked just fine, and anything else is obvious nickel and diming by the manufacturer. Not cool.
If great sound quality and file management flexibility are your priorities in a music player, then you really have only a few serious options; the cowon j3 and the samsung p3 or r1. Although I believe the build quality on the samsung is probably better, I went with the j3 because I wanted room to expand the memory.
28 of 28 found the following review helpful:
Its Easy and it sounds great! Jun 10, 2010
By B. Das
"blue hunter"
This is probably the best music player I have owned period.
Battery:
Went to camping the day I got it and spent countless hours listening to Dream Theater. 3 days later the battery was not even close to dead. All the other electronics (including music players) my friends had were depending on the solar charger.
(officially: 64 hours music, 11 hours video, 300+ hours of standby)
Audio Quality: If you like your music just about perfect sounding, this is something you want. I listened to one song on my friends player (guess which music player?) and then listened to J3 and vice versa.. I could clearly tell how superior this device was (that too on stock headphones). Lovely. Then I got addicted and I bought a mid range in-ear bud (sony mdr-ex57lp) and the music for me has never been better.
(BTW, BBE+ settings are amazing. You get 4 custom settings too. Makes the song 10x better.)
UI is not buggy. I like it.
Its not very fancy though.
But its flash and C++. :)
Very customizable if you want to make you own UI or just wait a bit till someone makes 'em.
Touch works great. Screen is scratch free for me even after rough camping.
Radio=Nice!
Picture Viewer=Good!
I will highly recommend this device to anyone who cares about the quality of songs in absolute terms.
If however, you are looking for internet there is none. Therefore, no app store, no skype, no facebook :(.
I dint care. I have my HTC for better things.
Video Quality: Amazing, Smooth and No Lags.
But, no Camera or Video Recording.
Favorite Part: Works as a flash drive right out of the box. So no requirements to install any special software(s). :)
14 of 14 found the following review helpful:
What An PMP Should Be Jun 23, 2010
By G. Urrutia
"El Locomotive"
There are a few things that I want to note, but they are only minimal, and are not necessarily weak or bad features. I simply want to inform fellow customers on the major differences compared to the Zune HD and Ipod, which I feel are probably the biggest competitors for the J3.
The OS on this system is no-frills, meaning the GUI is minimalistic in appearance, but this is not a con. Rather, if your looking for something that gets the job done with no lag or fooling around, this is the player you want. (Think VLC player software, a light resource but a swiss army knife for media) If you're looking for something as smooth and attractive as the Zune HD OS, you're out of luck, but it is way faster than the iPod Classic. The AMOLED screen certainly looks better than the iPod as well.
I have frozen and have had to reset my J3 several times while playing certain FLAC files, but I think this has to do more with the actual files than the player, as it plays the rest of my music fine. (It only has been freezing on Beatles Remastered FLAC songs, and I'm currently working on fixing that.)
That being said, resetting this thing is a breeze, and it only takes a second. I mean that just how it sounds, one second to reset, vs. the 45-60 seconds for the iPod Classic or Touch. However, you can't reset on the fly, as you need a paper clip or something to that effect first. Another thing to consider is that neither the iPod or the Zune HD is capable of playing FLAC files.
The Media Manager software is a little unintuitive for my tastes, as I cannot figure out how to customize what windows show up where and editing tags en masse isn't the easiest thing to do. (I currently use Media Monkey regularly)
I do not care about Apps or Wifi. I have a phone for that, and I don't even watch movies on the J3. I bought it for the sound quality (which is amazing, other's comments are true about the quality of Cowon's players)and its versatility regarding file formats.
Ipod's and Zunes try to serve a greater demographic by offering many different apps, functions and the like. This is all well and good, but I bought the first iPod to listen to music, and that hasn't changed. Apple's software has become bloated and I feel that it's more trouble than it's worth. Zunes and Ipod's are jacks of all trades, good at everything, but not masters.
Cowon has decided to offer a player that focuses on one thing, and that's playing media, and the J3 does it very, very well. If that's all you're looking for, then this is the player for you. I recommend this to anyone who only wants to pay for a media player, and take comfort in knowing your money didn't go to a feature you will never use.
9 of 9 found the following review helpful:
Sweet, Sweet Upgrade Oct 08, 2010
By Christine A.
"animeluva1"
I'm one of those consumers have receive hand-me-down MP3 players from friends and relatives who constantly upgrade their music players. When the last MP3 player finally broke down on me I told myself, "No more hand-me-downs!"
Things That are Awesome:
++The J3 is a slim and sexy little number. I personally thought the black version looked better than the white version. Confuse your friends and pretend it's a new cell phone.
++Cowon is known to have superior sound. Even with my cheap headphones the J3 takes my music collection to a whole new level in audio pleasure. (Recommended setting is 'X-bass'.)
++FM Radio! Once you set your country you can get local radio stations. There's even a spin dial like on an old tuner. Not crisp audio obviously but it's one of the small things I missed from ye olde Walkman.
++Super duper battery life. At work I play music all day. I did my first full charge (2.5 hour charge recommended) a week ago. Going almost a week now and the J3 hasn't died yet. Low battery? Yes. Dead? No.
++Touch screen has a sensitivity level that's just right. I admit I have touch pressure of a toddler with a crayon in hand. It means a lot to me that the screen doesn't go nuts from a tap.
++Drag and drop your music and movies. No more bloatware.
Things That Didn't Work as Planned:
--The auto-orientation gets confused. I'm talking about when you flip your J3 around from portrait to landscape and back. Doesn't happen frequently but it often does when I'm searching through the music library.
--Your thumb can cover the mic and speaker.
--Interface could use some work. It's not fantastic and super intuitive like an iPod. Give yourself about 10 minutes and you'll figure the menu out soon enough.
--Proprietary cable. C'mon Cowon it wouldn't hurt sales that bad to have a mini-USB input for your North American J3 rather than the one you have.
--Lack of third party accessories. It's not something you think about until you realize "Oh hey I should get myself a screen protector for this thing."
The cons listed above aren't very glaring. However I feel customers have the right to know what to expect from this otherwise fantastic product.
As other reviews have said, if you're the type that can't live without apps and WiFi, this isn't the product for you. If you're the type that needs a media player that plays videos beautifully and interprets audio even better than that, this is for you.
See all 54 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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