Well, What do you think of your D2's?

[reydan]

I've read a lot of messages here, but there hasn't been much talk about the look and feel of the D2. Does the touch screen work well? Can you read the displayed text easily? Do the menus change quickly? How fast is the scrolling speed? That kind of stuff. I know it will sound great, but what about the interface? Can you lucky D2 owners share your thoughts with those of us still waiting in agony? Thanks!

[rox1co]

it's very well built, from the pictures and even knowing the dimensions, it seems so unreal that something so small could pack so much power! the LCD is so beautiful (IMO), watching videos is really nice, but you may get annoyed with the glare/angle; now if you get the positioning right, then you start to awe. things load amazingly fast, the videos i'm loading range from 100mb to 600mb and i don't notice any lag. some ppl complain about how hard it is to operate the D2, they're just noobs. it took me like less than 30 minutes to seriously feel for the interface. viewing text is pretty sweet, with the new firmware upgrade, you're able to expand it (almost full-screen). also when i look at pictures, wowz0r! and not but least, the music sounds good; i have an Audio-Technica A500 and it can drive ittt. i'm still amazed by this little sucker ;) get one! you won't regret it.

[Rockin_amigo14]

i have to agree. i have yet to find any MAJOR faults with this beauty, except I would prefer it as the A2 successor rather than a D1 successor. (meaning bigger screen, more video codec support, bigger storage).

[rox1co]

i haven't experienced any faults. only thing i'd wish is for more HD space but oh well. now if "compression" didn't exist, then we'd have a problem!

the Cowon included software is pretty sweet. the audio is slightyyy off but not enough to annoy me.

[Erasure4ever]

i have to agree. i have yet to find any MAJOR faults with this beauty, except I would prefer it as the A2 successor rather than a D1 successor. (meaning bigger screen, more video codec support, bigger storage).

The A2 already has a successor called the A3.

[reydan]

Thanks to everyone who has replied, so far. I have owned an A2 for over a year, now. It's fantastic! Even though the body is plastic, the build quality is solid. I expect the D2 will exhibit the same quality. The only problem with the A2 is its girth and weight. But when you ask for a 4" screen, and I did, that's what you get. I am moving it over to my home theatre system with permanent audio/video connections. My daughter bought me a 1gb iPod nano for Christmas (Yes, I'm selling it!). While the Nano's size and weight are small, so is the performance. The screen is too small for viewing anything, it totally lacks depth in features and codec support, and the storeage is horrible (248 songs in MP3 format only). I think the D2 is going to be the "perfect" size and weight. I want to keep it in my shirt pocket all the time, ready to roll.

I guess the reasons for my initial questions, is that it's just hard to believe that even Cowon can pack so much into such a small package. I keep thinking there has to be a down side. But I'm going to put my faith in Cowon and place an order. I've already ripped my entire CD collection to the OGG format. I'll keep photos and videos on SD cards. I only wish the contents of SD card's would sort seamlessly with the contents of the D2's internal memory when you insert them. Sansa does this. But if you read their blog, you'll also see lots of unhappy customers. Too many firmware issues with Sansa. Rox1co mentioned that he mastered the interface in about 30 minutes. I can believe this, because that's about what it took me with the A2. It's a dream machine. I'll probably still take it along on some trips. The D2 is for my shirt pocket. Size, weight, features, and performance. I think this is it!

[mikey]

Reydan, you wont be disappointed, the only issue I have and posted elsewhere if the battery life using sd cards, mine was like 25 hours, half of the advertised time. Maybe it will improve with battery conditioning.
This is my second touch screen gadget (other is a umpc) and must say once you use a touch screen you wont want to use anything else. I have the archos 504 and get frustrated that i have to use the buttons instead of the screen.

[TimeConsumer]

I've already ripped my entire CD collection to the OGG format.

I did this before receiving my D2 also. Though I put my music on a 4gb sd card. I have 1148 songs on right now and I think around 700 mb still left on the card. This is using q1 though and I know some people can't tolerate that kind of compression but I was looking for quantity[smile]

[mrsmr2]

I've had mine since Monday and am amazed with it.

It is such a small, well built, and brilliantly engineered piece of kit.

The screen is really sharp and the music playing screen layout is very good. Pictures look good and there doesn't seem to be any ghosting on the video playback.

When playing music, I soon got into the habit of touching the screen to bring up the skip track, and pause buttons. You soon get into the habit of touching the screen twice in quick succession to pause the music (or movie), and then once more the continue playing.

Audio quality seems very good. It produces a better quality sound than my minidisc player (which is pretty good and I feel produces better sound than a Nano).

Radio is a bit weak.

I like the fact that it will play everything I've thrown at it so far - mp3, ogg, flac, wav, and mp2 files.

The only thing I don't like is that it always charges when plugged into the USB. So, if you plug it in to copy files over it will part charge.

It's also a good idea to change the auto off time which is defaulted to 1 minute. That means the unit will switch off after a minute even when the music is paused, meaning the unit has to be switched on again and you have to sit through the boot up sequence.

Overall, buy one. I can't imagine you would be disappointed.

[mrsmr2]

I did this before receiving my D2 also. Though I put my music on a 4gb sd card. I have 1148 songs on right now and I think around 700 mb still left on the card. This is using q1 though and I know some people can't tolerate that kind of compression but I was looking for quantity[smile]

I use q6, and they sound great.

[Yurre]

I'm very, very pleased with my D2 2Gb, couldn't afford the 4gb version.. but looking at my budget, maybe i did :P

Anyway, i bought a 4Gb MMC plus card so now i have 6 Gb..

The D2 feels Nice in the hand, not cheap at all, very good materials where chosen...
The color is "scratch proof" meaning, it's not painted, the plastic is colored, the silver piece aswell...

I dont use the stylus, but this stylus is small, not as the nintendo DS one...

[penyuijo]

Love it.
Install the software succesfully and love it even more

[Carlovski]

The build quality appears to be excellent. It's a coincidence but I use a sony ericsson K750i which is made out of the same sort of plastic and the same colours, very similar styling in fact. The screen is excellent, I think it is far better than the one on a zen vision:M which used to have. Sound quality through decent headphones is spot on and there is enough power to drive them properly.
Better playlist support would be nice along with id3 browsing, but I can cope without it on a flash based player.
I'll have to keep an eye out on battery life from the SD card, it seemed to die on me very quickly last night - I've been using the sd card more than the palyer memory as it is so easy to pop out the card and stick it into the sd slot on my laptop.
Bookmarking for videos works very well, and being able to skip to any part of the video easily is great, it was VERY clunky on the vision:M.
All in all I am very happy with my purchase, just wish I had been patient enough to wait for the 4Gb version!

[mikey]

I'll have to keep an eye out on battery life from the SD card, it seemed to die on me very quickly last night - I've been using the sd card more than the palyer memory as it is so easy to pop out the card and stick it into the sd slot on my laptop.

Im glad it just not mine then, any chance of estimating your playtime.

[rox1co]

I will admit the radio is weak, but I didn't expect it to be as powerful as a car radio, yanno (I'm from Tx). Overall, if I find the right spot and stay put, reception is no problem.

[tabv]

Just wanted to bring this old thread up to say how much I love my D2...

I've had it now since the 4gb version was available in the USA and I've used it everyday since...and that's after having 3 other Cowon's...The D2 is just amazing...today I was listening to Dave's True Story version 2002 with my Sennheiser HD595 and it is so awesome..the sound the smoothness the power...just awesome...better than anything I've ever heard...Kelly Flints voice on "Dave's Trues Story" sounds just awesome...you can hear her lips smack as she's sings as if she was right there..that recording is just pristine...the best recording I've ever heard...if any of you are into jazz or jazz vocals get that cd..you can't stop listening to it..even if you aren't into jazz get that cd...it's a great cd to let your friends hear the sound quality of the D2.
Hope all you D2 owners are enjoying it as much as I do..[biggrin]

[goatherder]

After using it for a while:

As much as I might bitch about the inadequate implementation of the touchscreen, I really like what the player does in terms of an audio player. I don't really use the video or photo features, and neither do I call on the voice recorder or the FM radio often.

But I appreciate the UMS + self databasing feature even if it's a little problemmatic and the long run-time. Support for Ogg (not used much) and FLAC (more often) is appreciated. I like the swappable storage which allows me to use it flexibly and I like that it doesn't feel like it's going to snap in half if you so much as look at it.

I also like the decent unEQ'd audio quality which is pretty uncoloured or otherwise untampered with, as I almost never hit the EQ except to compensate for the more wayward sounding phones in my possession like the Etymotic ER-4P or the Shure E3c. And although I wouldn't say the base sound quality is appreciably better than an iPod, iRiver or the currently hyped Trekstor Vibez, it is very good all the same and the ability to modify it if you wish - if you own lower-quality or otherwise compromised head/earphones which may benefit from tonal compensation - is a bonus.