Reasons not to buy S9

[Vonn]

Alright, backstory time.
I am a very proud owner of an A2. The thing is incredible. But after almost 3 years of abuse from me it's starting to die. The joystick no longer registers 'up' commands. The power button is chipped on the inside so it's difficult to start. The hold button is just... well there's no hope left for that one. So now I'm looking at getting a new DAP, and my first choice was a Cowon product, which lead me to the S9.

I'd be using the product the same way I used my A2. A rough, in-pocket day of about 6 hours of use time. This would happen every day for the next few years hopefully. It'd be used with HD headphones, a want to develop for it, and a want to MOD and have fun with it.

Question time.
In this thread I'm asking people to give me all the reasons they can possibly come up with to NOT buy this product. What I'm not looking for is direct comparisons. Please S9 owners, help me out. Touch screen doesn't register touches right? Short life? Any reason at all.

Thanks in advance,
Vonn

[Uphaillife]

Originally Posted by Vonn

Alright, backstory time.
I am a very proud owner of an A2. The thing is incredible. But after almost 3 years of abuse from me it's starting to die. The joystick no longer registers 'up' commands. The power button is chipped on the inside so it's difficult to start. The hold button is just... well there's no hope left for that one. So now I'm looking at getting a new DAP, and my first choice was a Cowon product, which lead me to the S9.

I'd be using the product the same way I used my A2. A rough, in-pocket day of about 6 hours of use time. This would happen every day for the next few years hopefully. It'd be used with HD headphones, a want to develop for it, and a want to MOD and have fun with it.

Question time.
In this thread I'm asking people to give me all the reasons they can possibly come up with to NOT buy this product. What I'm not looking for is direct comparisons. Please S9 owners, help me out. Touch screen doesn't register touches right? Short life? Any reason at all.

Thanks in advance,
Vonn

touch screen registers only touches from your body or anything with electrical impulses. however, that doesn't mean it won't register the touch by your body through your clothes. you can use hold.

short life as in battery..? nope. not at all
short life as in durability... maybe. it does seem on the light side and may not be that durable, but that's just me

hrmm reasons to NOT buy it?
no clue. no wifi i guess. it's pretty much everything you can ask for in a music player.
video UI is pretty good imo with its scene capturing abilities
picture browser is horrible, but necessary in showing off pictures on AMOLED screen.

[Adapada]

Pros:
Yea, durability wise, the S9 may be lighter (but FΔt = mΔv so it can hit the ground with a higher force and still be hurt less)

Battery wise, its the best of ANY DAP

Touchscreen is capacitive (requires no stylus) and you use your fingers to navigate
Videos are great on the screen

Cons (for me):
No Wifi
The stock UCI is not really great ( use the custom ones!)
Pic browser is not great, but it works

[Houle_Marauder]

I'd say it has absolutely no cons whatsoever. but for somebody who likes to mod stuff and the like...it is a very delicate machine. gorilla glass was used with the intention of making the screen less scratchable, but not less breakable. the S9 is very...dainty? lol. it's a beautiful little player, and functions perfectly, but be very careful with it.

[trent25]

In your pocket you have to have the screen locked (using one of the custom UI) or the hold button (set to touchscreen leaves tactile buttons active). For me it always register touches with the cloth inside my pocket (even with the leather inside the cowon case).

The screen is a grease magnet. I compared it to the iPhone 3GS, and the S9 was clear loser in that aspect. Not a fan of apple, not at all, but I have to admit, whatever coating they used does a better job than what I get on the S9. (I'm not sure if the S9 has any coating to begin with).

The lock button location is a bit annoying when using it with one hand, so taking it out of your pocket>unlocking>using the screen>relocking>putting it back in your pocket, all while using one hand is annoying, BUT you can just use the tactile buttons and not even take it out of your pocket in the first place.

While the screen is made of gorilla glass, it's not unscratchable nor unbreakable. There are some people that had their screen broken (the glass cover) after a drop. I guess best protection combo would be a rubber skin and a screen protector. I got the cowon official case, but I don't find it too practical (the cover is just in the way when using it with my left hand), I end up removing it most of the time.

It is light (it was lighter than I expected even knowing that it would be light), but I'm not sure that translates to less durable, the plastic doesn't creek nor does it bend under pressure.

The user interface is ok, not great, but there are custom UI. So pick whatever you like. It isn't too smooth, but nothing that creates usability problems. So after you tap the music icon you have to wait for a sec for it to load, it's not instantaneous.

The battery indicator is just a general idea, not an indicator, it goes 25% at a time. And lasts hours on 0%, even with video I can do an hour or more on 0%.

That said I would still go with the S9 if I was buying now.

[Vonn]

Thanks to all who replied. Looks like I'm going to be an S9 owner within the next week.

[number5toad]

my two cents: the only reason not to buy the S9 is if you really value any of the features it lacks, but its competitors have (wifi, HD output, HD radio to name a few)

if you're not after those features and just want the best sound and video quality, this is the way to go

[DAPmagic]

I wouldn't call this a deal breaker, as most owners report a stellar battery life, but I've always had problems with the battery indicator.

After about an hour of video player the indicator shows the battery at 75% full. Yesterday, I used the player for approximately 4 hours of combined video and music playback. While watching a video the battery indicator showed the battery at only 25% full. Again, this was after less than 4 hours.

I usually watch videos with brightness at 4 or 5 and volume between 30-38.

I've been spoiled by AMOLED. As long as I'm into watching videos on PMPs, I can't imagine buying a player that does not have an AMOLED screen and awesome sound quality like the S9.

[Don't Panic]

The battery seems to have had some bad batches but is still the best out there. I had two S9 and the first one had a short(-er) battery life( 5-6 hours of video with standard settings- brightness 3-volume 20-30) The second one is much better 8-10 hours same settings so i'm a happy trooper.

As to the gadget department, the S9 lacks against it's competitors but, if you have a phone with those features(Wifi-apps-etc) you sure have a good solid combination. Also if you divide you use between two devices the battery life goes up as well.

Lastly the build quality. The S9 is very light, which some people like to relate to as less quality. And it's build is plastic. Both things don't bother me very much cos plastic is solid. Not as hard as the iphones back plastic which can crack in the corners. Also i like to use the S9 with sports(running, cycling snowboarding) so a light device is a plus++.

[Dalmane98]

I have not used my S9 since I brought a Sansa 8GB Clip+ with a 16GB SDHC.

24GB of storage and you can not beat the price...Less than a $100.00.

My music is OGG and my audio books are MP3.

All I am looking for is a good Audio player with portability and the Clip+ fits my requirements...Audio Player...Nothing more.

[Neare]

With regards to battery life, I noticed with mine that during the first few charge cycles the life was around half (or perhaps even less) of what I should be. However after it got a bit of use and I suppose, burned in, battery life is great now and I only really charge it once a fortnight (that's if I use it fairly heavily) as opposed to maybe once every few days during the first weeks. If you get a battery that doesn't live up to standards, give it a few full cycles first and see what happens.

[musical_kage]

Don't beleive no ones mentioned the lack of any SD card slot... I would have wanted one of them.
I rip music in FLAC, and I'm worrying I'm simply going to run out of space before I've copied all the music I want on there.

[Verilu]

No SD slot, no Wi-Fi, the 32GB model is priced steep when compared to it's featureset, sluggish file browser performance, and (for me at least) awful battery performance in Flash, and only Flash.

It's got great sound quality and format supports, though, as well as community interface mods.

[Kizune]

I have one question... why does a PMP need WiFi?

I really don't get it...... buy a PDA if you need WiFi....


Here a quote from 34.50:

"Thanks the to the itouch, the industry has to change because everyone wants wifi on some shitty device that doesnt work well"

You are so right, mate...

[oneforall]

Originally Posted by dnw

I have one question... why does a PMP need WiFi?

I really don't get it...... buy a PDA if you need WiFi....


Here a quote from 34.50:

"Thanks the to the itouch, the industry has to change because everyone wants wifi on some shitty device that doesnt work well"

You are so right, mate...

WiFi brings the dynamism to the PMP. I would of course like to carry one device which does a lot of things instead of carrying many devices with different functionalities but the same shape and size form factor. Even if I stick to PMP only capability, several music applications exist which enrich the musical experience through the net connection. For example, sampling and finding related music, album art download, lyrics download, ratings, sharing, upload,...
If we want to hold on to PMP only rhetoric then why is the Tower Defense game such a hit for the S9? Now think about playing it in a networked environment. Or why does Aero G1 now support a rudimentary ToDo list?

A WiFi implementation done well works wonders.