Cowon C2 16 GB MP4 Player

1. Opened the package - contents were player itself, usb cable, earphones, one manual (only 2 pages english).
2. Tried to turn on the player... it would not turn on... probably it was fully drained.
3. Plugged in the player to the usb - very hard to push... keep pushing to get a click... otherwise it will connect/disconnect repeatedly.. but the connector looks and feels sturdy. (complains in the forums were refering to this. There is no problem if the cable is properly connected.)
4. The player itself feels like a paper weight. sturdy and solid.
5. Charged for about 4 hours (shows full ). the player is detected as an external device allowing us to copy paste files. Data transfer rate is good (8 mbps average). I could fill 12 gb of music in no time.
6. After turn on, it indexes files (takes 2 mins to turn on - first time only). The player how ever takes about 15 secs to turn on.
7. The interface is not as bad as described in reviews. There are 2 options for the theme. One which greets you with the time of the day etc with square buttons and one with round buttons (I personally like the one with round buttons). I felt that the interface is straight forward. Nothing is hidden.
8. The screen is resistive. So I have to use my finger nails to navigate - it is quite responsive, not as feared.
9. Now for the audio quality - I tested with srh440. Listened to a song from my sony walkman for comparison. The difference in quality was just noticeable. The cowon c2 is able to drive the headphone better, the bass, beats etc etc were little more punchy and presence was good. (I was a little disappointed with this - the reviews were great and my expectations have gone high).
10. Meddling with the player more to check for more settings glitches etc. Then I found the equaliser. Set it to BBE. Now I could understand what the reviews were talking about. The sound was rich, clear and "WOW". Some times we get to hear previously un-noticed sounds but with cowon, we will feel that this instrument is not that difficult to notice. (it is not like you hear something new, but it definitely makes it easy for us to get to hear all the "voices in the song")
11. Video is decent, but i have only tried with the default videos which were already there.
12. The display does the job. Even after the screen is off, the buttons let us to increase/decrease volume xor go to next/previous songs, pause the song without turning on the display.

This player came with version 1.15 which acc. to cowon fixes all the bugs like bricking etc etc. Version 1.17 firmware is available, but I am not going to upgrade.

Yeah it is! It is wonderfully small....wonderfully powerful(for big headphones as well)....wonderfully sounding....and WONDERFUL (in one word)

I won't bore you with all the technical specs. I would spare with you some insight about which player to get with this budget. If you have landed with these many bucks in your pocket, its likely u must be considering an iPod Nano which is a great option if you want a no-frills, chic-looking and super-easy device to use. But remember, you will be missing out on this:
1. Unbelievable music reproduction quality
2. FLAC support (Apple! You SUCK!)
3. Awesome battery life
4. Expandable memory (through microSD card)
5. Best radio quality ever!
6. Brilliant quality sound recording (comparable with stand alone recorders)

But to disclose whatever I found out about this little champ: it has got a resistive touch screen (which IMHO, doesn't matter much.......as it is a music player guys....not a mobile phone). Some may complain about its UI but I found it quite good once one gets used to it (which never takes more than 2 days maximum and there are always UI options available for Cowon C2). Video playback is OK. With all these new Android phones flooding the market, I am yet to find someone who is hard-pressed to buy a music player for just videos (rather buy iPod touch (23,000 Rs) then).

All in all.....definitely a great purchase. Its super sturdy, looks great and sounds awesome! Definitely recommended!

P.S.: If you want to gift this to your girlfriend, then she must be A BOY to use this....believe me girls dont want to put their mental faculties into something as small as this! NO OFFENSE, GIRLS! Get them an iPod!

I bought this player after reading the reviews regarding its excellent audio quality and superb battery life. After having bought it, the player does not disappoint. The player is a lot smaller than it looks in the pictures and its compactness and sleekness surprised me.


The head phones that come with the player are just about ok and does not do justice to what it can do. This player demands to be paired up with decent set of headphones to bring out its awesomeness. I am currently using this with bose in ear headphones and it just rocks! I have also tested it with creative ep-630 headphones and those too sound excellent with this.

The UI takes a little getting used to and also be aware that its a resistive touch screen, but other than that I highly recommend this excellent little player.

Got this baby on flipkart and it rocks.Neat ,tiny and a great cheaper ,much better alternative to the apple nano.