Newbie w/ questions about Q5

[Hoot]

Howdy y'all,

I am new to this forum, and in fact new to the world of Cowon (never even heard of it prior to this past weekend). I was just reading about various media players a couple of weeks ago (in light of the whole Iphone craze lately) and had decided I wanted portable wifi. I had settled on the Archos 605 160gb player, when I just happened to run across an article on the Q5.

My question is, is there anywhere on the internet which reviews the wifi capability? There are numerous videos on youtube which show the Archos 605 in action (browsing and otherwise), but nothing--not even a picture--of the Q5's browser capability (e.g., I'm curious to see how well the onscreen keyboard works, how quickly one can scroll through web pages, how the zoom in/out works, etc).

As a side question, what is the benefit of the HSDPA feature? I"ve tried reading about it online (e.g., through wiki and other google searches) but don't really know how it'll work with the Q5.

Anyways, any info would be great appreciated. Thanks in advance![thumbsup]

[pepsi_max2k]

i've not seen any videos of web browsing yet, though i don't expect it to be as good as the 605's. the q5 uses IE under windows ce 5, displays at a fixed 800*480 resolution and should have flash 7 support, no idea about ajax / javascript yet though. the on screen keyboard is a little pop up window that even on it's largest setting doesn't look like it'll be that big, and only takes up about 1/4 of the screen. don't think there'll even be any zoom in / out unless you can use windows' magnifying feature (read: useless). and it may be recognized as a mobile browser by some major sites leading to them loading striped down versions.

contrast this to the 605, which uses opera (much better standards support) with so called "Extensible Rendering Architecture" to resize pages (so even on the 800*480 screen sites look more like they do on a 1024px width than 800), full ajax / javascrip support, flash 7 (until adobe bother to update their flash lite version) and a keyboard integrated into the gui (takes up about half the screen so much easier to use) and zooming is not really needed unless really small text, in which case double tap on blank space to zoom in / out and dragging page around seems pretty responsive. it's recognized as a normal browser by sites (so no mobil version) and also has a faster processor so may be quicker at displaying stuff too.

then again, you can plug a keyboard & mouse in to the q5...

[eric3a]

Opera trumps IE on almost any platform in my opinion, but is especially excellent for small screen rendering.
For those who want internet browsing from their PMP, I'd suggest getting Opera.

Eric

[Hoot]

Thanks for the advice. That's actually pretty helpful. I'm sure I'll buy another updated PMP in 2-3 years, so maybe by then Cowon's latest gen will have everything set up perfectly.

But for now, that may swing me towards the 605 (better browser and bigger HD). I will miss the GPS feature, and I still don't know if I'm missing out by not having HSDPA. But I'll continue to monitor the Q5 reviews as they come out.

Again, thanks!

[zaphanathpaneah]

Opera trumps IE on almost any platform in my opinion, but is especially excellent for small screen rendering.
For those who want internet browsing from their PMP, I'd suggest getting Opera.

Eric

Opera is not secure

[just.another.blue]

i don't know about you but i've had problem with opera freezing on me especialy when i go into gmail.

[stow]

Opera is not secure

You mean like IE is?!

[zaphanathpaneah]

Supposedly. I don't use IE, I use Firefox. IE is garbage ....but....it's more secure than anything else out there. At least that's what I read.

[pepsi_max2k]

Supposedly. I don't use IE, I use Firefox. IE is garbage ....but....it's more secure than anything else out there. At least that's what I read.

oh dear. whatever you read, please, change it.

http://www.crossroads-webdesign.com/articles/articles.php?mod=op-ff-ie

[eric3a]

Thanks for posting that... Opera IS a lot more secure than IE according to many analysts. First, because it's not part of the OS, but just another software (not bloated either!)

On a small machine like PMPs, Opera absolutely rules. It resizes and rearranges the screen very cleverly wihout user intervention to make it usable on small screens and has a host of clever concepts to make life easy on a small screen.

If good web browsing is important to you on a small screen, I'd suggest going for an Opera capable machine.
Eric

[zaphanathpaneah]

This was on the news recently. Opera for windows really sucked. It was slow and unsecure. On a mac it was brilliant. I saw it on TV as well on CNET.com. I'll look it up. Maybe CNN and Cnet had it wrong. Sorry guys for the incorrect information.

Z

[IdontexistM8]

Opera slow and insecure? I think they must have been off their head at the time.

[Hess]

Opera for Windows CE

Opera has released an SDK for Windows CE, and customers are now building it into devices which will be forthcoming.