Buy A2 now or wait for A3?

[SilentEcho13]

Well, i can choose to buy a 30gb a2 for $320 on amazon, or i can wait and get an a3 once it releases. The only thing i'm worried about is that the a3 will have a very high $400+ price tag, money which i don't have.

What's your opinion on my situation?
What should i do?

Thanks.

[hobo]

Hmm. I think you should wait until OCtober has come and gone. Supposely some more Cowon players are going to be released. Anyway we will see Cowon at CES in January and i bet you they will show off some good stuff.

So my advice is wait until we hear anouncements from Cowon. My evidence to support this can be found at this thread http://iaudiophile.net/forums/showthread.php?t=11321

[SilentEcho13]

yea, i did look at that thread.
what was the a2's retail price when it first came out?
currently i'm using a u3, and its only 1gb. i can only fit about 210 songs, and my library is 2000+..
so thats where the problem comes in :P

[eric3a]

Buy A2 now or wait for A3?
Absolutely yes.

Eric

[SilentEcho13]

absolutely buy the a2 or absolutely wait for the a3?

[taxxon]

what was the a2's retail price when it first came out?
30GB= $449.99
20GB= $399.99

[backlash]

I think it all depends on personal need/want. I mean if you are really wantning to enter the PMP market right away and don't care if an newer PMP comes out in the next few months or so, then go ahead and buy the A2 you will love it, or if you are one who loves to stay on top of the tech-game and always have somthing knew then wait and see what Cowon releases. I haven't heard any concrete evidence about their "new" player yet so I don't know waht kind of enhancements we are looking at for the new player.

[IdontexistM8]

I'd wait...if the Archos x04 range supported AC3 and Subs out of the box I would have bought one of them here and now.

I'm not getting one on the basis of Archos putting out plugins to buy as and when they feel like it.

The two things that put me off buying the A2 was 4" screen and the regular reports of dust under the screen. I wasn't 100% won over by the design..not saying it was bad but it didn't scream buy me.

I've got my fingers crossed that Cowon will have positive news shortly.

[backlash]

what's so bad about the 4" screen? Any bigger and it wont be that portable, I mean do you want a bigger screen, or smaller like the ipod which you can't see anything.

[Daiken]

Sigh, I'm in the same boat as the topic creator. I've decided though that it's probably best to just buy the A2 now. I'll wait another week or two maybe. If Cowon releases a new player, it'll be expensive no doubt. I found the A2 to be expensive when it came out and outside of the US it still is. It's finally reached the price point where I'll consider buying it, which is around $350. Plus, the A2 is so feature rich, the things I want are small and not worthy of a new player. If they're releasing a new player they're most likely going to make some big changes, probably with things I don't care for. For example, I don't really care about internet browsing (would be nice), don't care for GPS (would be nice), don't care for huge screens, etc.

The improvements to the A2 I would like to have seen are:

- A better aesthetic design, one also where dust does not easily get under the screen.
- A better sharper screen if possible, maybe just more dpi.
- Higher bit rate recording (not as important).
- Twin tuner so you can watch one channel and record another (yeah, this isn't gonna be happening, but it's nice to hope).
- Support for H.264 (I think the A2 doesn't have this)
- Some bigger hard drives.
- Kickstand!
- Less change in screen contrast when changing vertical angle.
- Removable battery

Again, a lot of these things, I don't care THAT much for, but it's just things I'd like to have. I think the A2 is great for its price and I probably wouldn't be able to afford anything with all the features I want.

[IdontexistM8]

what's so bad about the 4" screen? Any bigger and it wont be that portable, I mean do you want a bigger screen, or smaller like the ipod which you can't see anything.

Well I guess 4.3" is the current standard but I'd expect slightly larger screens to filter down into the market over the next 12mths.

[SilentEcho13]

4" is a great screen size for portable video, psp's screen is very good, and even the ipod's 2.5" screen isn't horrible either, now that the n2 was announced, and the release of the 1.82b f/w, what does everyone think about the release of an a3 successor?

[midnite8791]

I hope the A3 comes in 60gb or even 100gb

[backlash]

I agree a bigger harddrive would be nice, but what was the decision on the new toshiba drives that have been realeased in a larger size, if we could not just upgrade the harddrive in the player ourselves, and with a firmware update get the a2 to recognize the larger drive.

[SilentEcho13]

well, the a2 is on newegg for $307, so i guess i'll just order it. even if the a3 comes out, i guess the a2 is still an amazing player.

and according to info on the main page, the a3 won't have major changes.

thanks for the help :D