PC Mag A2 Review

[MCSmarties]

Just read their review of the A2 through dapreview.net and I'm appalled. :mad:
(no I won't post a direct link, don't give these jerks more traffic without at least giving some to austinv first!)

3 out of 5 when the only serious complaint is the imperfect recording, something that can and will be fixed via firmware?!
What about the hardware, the GUI, the wealth of functions? Morons.

And that just a week or so after they sunk the X5
(Granted, I have never used one myself but I'm sure it deserves better than the score they gave it)

I seriously wonder whether we - the iaudiophile community - should somehow start voicing our opinion a bit more fiercely.
Maybe something along the line of an online petition asking them - no, demanding - to do their reviews more carefully,
then sending their editor the link once there's enough signatures.
Pity they don't give their readers the option to comment on their site.

What do you think guys?
I am just so disgusted how all these so-called "expert magazines" (my :moonu:!)
just up the hype for iPod, iPod, iPod... while ignoring or blasting everything else.

They gotta be corrupt, I'm telling ya! Wonder how much Apple pays them. :woh:
(where's the "vomiting" smiley when you need it? Something like what they have over at jbmm.fr would be handy)

[Fuser]

A rating like that is clearly biased...Im sure they hardly run the device through its paces before slapping a 3/5 on it. I doubt they thouroghly examine Apple products before giving them perfect scores, as well. Not much we can do about it, they'll tell the readers was corporations want to hear.

[Martinp]

I think that we should do another email campaign similar to the one with Maximum PC. We got a massivly good response from that, because we have a lot of users on iAudiophile that can express themselves intelligently and do not flame other people when stating their opinion.

I really don't agree with the fact that, they put the iPod G5 in the same category as the Cowon A2. The score of the G5 relates to a percentage rating of 100% and the score of the A2 to 60%.

Okay - let's do this front page again. But before we do this I would like you guys to help me create a good news article.

PCMag recently reviewed the Cowon A2, and once again many A2 users find this score highly unjustified in comparison to other players reviewed.

For starters, the Apple iPod G5, which is also classed as a “Hard Disk MP3 Player, Portable Media Player” received a rating which translates to 100%. The Cowon A2 on the other hand, which is undoubtedly the better PMP, only received a score of 60%.

The main thing the guys at PCMag did not like about the Cowon A2 was that the video recording is not of high quality. And we agree with them too! It isn’t the best out there, but it is definitely better than having none at all. But what about all the other features that the Cowon A2 has over the Apple iPod G5 that do not require any extra adapters to work, but are included standard in every A2 package?

These are just a few reasons why the rating given is unjustified. If you agree with the above, then write PCMag an email and state your opinion. But please remember: Write them in an intelligent constructive fashion, do not flame them and show respect. If you do not have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all please. If you do write them a flaming email you will just come across as mindless fanboys. Don’t forget to write “concerning your Cowon A2 Review” or something similar in the subject line.

Cowon A2 Review by PCMag (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1902278,00.asp)

Contact PCMag’s editor:
pcmag@ziffdavis.com

Contact PCMag’s audio department:
Rich_Fisco@ziffdavis.com, Mike_Kobrin@ziffdavis.com, carol_mangis@ziffdavis.com, Kyle_Monson@ziffdavis.com

[austinv]

i can't figure what the PCmag reviewer was thinking, either. it's not a DVR, it's a PMP, and should be judged as such. i said as much in my review.

[crob]

for me, Cowon is advanced to AV500 Archos, but in the recording digital video AV500 is advanced.

[variozin]

The review at PC Mag didnt seem so bad or biased to me. They wrote many good things about A2. But I agree that did a mistake which is not a small one.
They reviewd A2 as PVR more than a PMP, otherwise whatever they wrote is not wrong. For example they wrote about a very basic problem that any A2 user will experience, i.e the use of joystick for selecting by pressing it downwards is not very convenient and very often user may endup pressing it side ways. Although its a small issue, but a thing that comes across so often.
The joystick of iAudio U3 is better comparitively.

Yes I also agree that they didnt speak as much about the good part of A2 as it deserves, like the wonderful screen, mutiple codec support, bookmarking,screen shots capture, etc.