Review: Cowon C2 digital media player

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In the box: the Cowon C2, a USB cable, printed quick user guide, and some Cowon SE2 earphones

There's a shiny metal case on the back with engraved branding and serial number (a classy touch)

To the right is the microSD card slot and the USB port

Along the top are some control buttons, including power/hold and a useful Menu key, which returns you to a top level screen wherever you may be within the player

On the left is a 3.5mm audio out jack, and the bottom edge is free of any buttons, ports or other distractions

The C2 has a small built-in speaker around the back, which is surprisingly loud for its size

The gloss display is prone to glare in bright light and is a fingerprint magnet

Cowon has included an animated Daily Life user interface in the C2, which greets you every time the unit is powered on

The six screens of the Daily Life UI

Access to the players various functions and settings is achieved by scrolling down through four screens made up of a three by three grid of icons, although there always seemed to be a few missing

Close up of the proprietary USB connection, a common standard in Korea but rare elsewhere

Screen 1 of the settings menu

The JetEffect 3.0 sound technology offers four user presets, which can be tweaked to personal listening preference

Finding your files is made easy with a very useful browser feature with built-in search functionality

Cowon C2 MP3 player hands-on review

Tapping anywhere on the screen brings up the main playback menu, featuring icons resembling those found on a CD player

As the faux record spins on the make believe deck, a semi-transparent progress bar moves across the screen as the track is played

One of the sub-menus, with which you can add a track to favorites, choose an EQ preset and opt to loop the music

The C2 also includes a digital voice recorder

The picture viewer offers six images per screen, each of which can be blown up to fill the screen by touch

The C2 picture viewer is restricted to JPEG files - this one of our pooch

Finding your files is made easy with a very useful browser feature with built-in search functionality

There's a built-in FM radio, with 24 presets available

The simple text document viewer on the C2

I found the video image too small to enjoy anything but the shortest of music videos, animations or short news features

Article Summary

Ever since Sony introduced me to portable music with its iconic Walkman series, my enormous collection of tunes has never been far from reach. I've been through tape cassette players, mini-Disc and CD players, and MP3/OGG/FLAC digital players but have stopped short of carrying my music around on my smartphone - preferring uninterrupted listening rather than risk being bothered by incoming calls and messages. My current digital music player has been giving me serious battery life issues of late, though, which shouldn't be an issue with Cowon's C2 MP3 player with its whopping 55 hours of claimed audio playback. So is there still room for the dedicated digital music player in a world dominated by media-playing mobile phones? I've been spending some quality time with the C2 and I think there is. Here's why...

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