Portable Media Players (PMPs) these days have converged to do a lot of things. However, companies like Cowon still produce a “true PMP” that concentrates only on the multimedia prowess and nothing else. The product we try out this time is Cowon’s V5 HD PMP.
Design and Construction:
Cowon adopts a simple design for its PMP. The front real-estate is occupied by the huge 4.8-inch screen while the left side features a 3.5mm audio jack, SD card slot, HDMI-out / USB port, LED status light and an AC charging slot; the top boasts a mic and a sliding Power button that doubles up as Hold too; the right side has volume buttons whereas the loudspeaker is located at the rear.
The player comes in a plastic body that makes the huge PMP weigh light. It weighs just under 200g which is light and measures 128x82x15.7mm, making it portable enough to carry it anywhere.
Display:
As mentioned earlier, Cowon V5 packs a 4.8-inch touchscreen display, which is definitely huge by most PMPs available today. It’s an LCD TFT screen that supports resolution to up to 800×480 pixels. Although the screen has a resistive touchscreen, the screen seemed responsive. A light press with the finger would do it but if you’re one of those who still prefer to operate with the stick, Cowon’s included a lanyard with a small pointed tip that acts as a stylus for the player.
User Interface:
V5 runs on Windows CE 6 but Cowon has gone a step ahead to integrate its customized user interface. User has the option to boot directly into Cowon’s UI or boot to Windows and then maneuver to the UI.
The V5 UI has a number of animated icons out of which only 5 (with the text below) are executable. We assume Cowon may have tried to be fancy (and cute?) with so many icons but it is bound to confuse users using V5 for the first time.
Few other issues we think the UI has that it does not resume automatically whatever you’re playing. For instance, if the player runs out of battery it will shut down and after a charge, you need to wade through the menu to play the file again. Thankfully, it saves the previous state so you’re back at watching from where you left. But why this hassle?
Navigating on V5 is however, a breather. Since the device is big and has to be held by both hands most of the times, Cowon has placed the controls on the sides of the screen. As you can see, all the important controls are within reach your thumb for quicker access.
Performance:
Despite its shortcomings in the user interface department, V5 handles multimedia playback efficiently. In fact, we were impressed by its music and videos playing capability. Most of files we threw in played without any issues. To sweeten the deal further, the player comes with Cowon’s JetEffect 3.0 to enhance audio quality, supports FLAC and 720p HD videos. V5 plays 720p HD videos without any lag but since its screen isn’t able to take the advantage of high definition goodness, Cowon has integrated an HDMI-out port. It may sound good but it’s not. Cowon has created a proprietary HDMI cable, which means you’ll have to buy it as an additional accessory (only 16GB) and will work only with Cowon’s player.
Other stuff:
In addition to playing music and videos, Cowon’s V5 also integrates Flash, games and documents support. While documents support is only limited to .txt files, users can install various flash games and apps on the player. As for the pre-installed games, there’s only Solitaire and Freecell that comes with Windows CE 6.0. But frankly they’re not worth playing due to the games’ touchscreen unfriendliness.
Connectivity:
When you’re selling a PMP at the same price of other top-end competitors like iPod touch et al, it is bound to draw a comparison. And though V5 is one good portable media player, it lacks on the connectivity front. For a top range PMP like V5, it lacks Wi-Fi and even Bluetooth. Both the options basically devoid V5 from competing to iPod touch head to head.
Battery life:
Cowon promises to give a music playback to up 45 hours and video playback to up to 10 hours. Our test with both music and video gave us about 30 hours of music and 6-7 hours of video, which is pretty good in our opinion.
Conclusion:
Cowon V5 is a mixed bag of joy and disappointment. On one hand, it disappoints you on the UI and lack of user friendliness but its decent hardware set and a good PMP experience makes it noteworthy. However, with iPod touch being similarly priced it becomes a hard sell for Cowon to position its player.
But if you’re willing to forgo a bit on the user friendliness and ease of use for some good PMP experience, this player won’t disappoint you.
Rating: 
Pros: Variety of multimedia playback, battery life, Screen
Cons: User Interface, No Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, Proprietary HDMI-out
if i wanna buy a pmp without feeling regret in the end, which should i buy? cowon V5? cowon O2? cowon J3? Samsung M1? Viliv P3? or Ipod touch? which one do you suggest better? thanks 🙂
Linda: It all depends what you want from the player. Cowon V5 is basically an upgraded O2 and will make a perfect companion only if you want to enjoy music and videos. Cowon J3, Viliv P3 and Samsung M1 compete with iPod touch but iPod touch gives the ability to surf the internet and play games.
i need it only for movie n music playing.but a bit disappointed of V5 because there is no wifi and bluetooth but so happy that it supports many video and audio format.
do you have any suggestions about pmp which has good quality of audio and video, also supports many video and audio format,but also has wifi and bluetooth.i am very confuse now.thanks