Cowon D3 Plenue 32 GB 3.7-Inch MP3 Player with Android (Black) Review

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(More customer reviews)I own the D3, and have gone over it with a fine tooth comb. While the specs are great, the firmware is not quite ready. Mine freezes up randomly. There is a persistent flaw in the music application that makes the audio cut-out momentarily near the beginning of each new song being played. There is also no access to any app market on the U.S. firmware of the D3. Cowon has been releasing updates rapidly though. These flaws may eventually be fixed, but since this is their first venture using Android on one of their players it is clear they need more experience. It is also overpriced given that a reliable 4th gen 32gb iPod Touch is $299 or less. There is no camera or GPS, and so far no engish version of a User Manual available either. Bluetooth worked fine with headphones except for that audio cut-out flaw. Files transfers over bluetooth failed every time I tried. No Bluetooth keyboard or mouse support either.
At the time of this review my D3 had (Korean) firmware 1.27 on it. The latest North America version was 3.25.
Update 2/10/2011: Cowon updated the firmware today, and with version 3.27 on my D3 the audio cut-out seems to have been eliminated.
Update 2/16/2011: Cowon updated the firmware again, to 1.29 (Korean). I expect the U.S. version (3.29) in a day or two. Now up to 9 home pages. Updates to the Music app including album art support for FLAC files. Still no gapless playback. Still the occasional bug playing music.
Update 3/12/2011: Cowon updated the firmware again. I've got version 3.31 on mine now. The Music app seems to be fixed except for no gapless playback yet. The Video app has a new trick when the D3 is flipped (ff/rw buttons reverse). Still too expensive with no app store and no local network streaming (Home Sharing on the iPod Touch, and available on the Archos android players). The UI is much more fluid now, but still hesitates when the media database decides to update.
My full review: [Google search for 4dthinker]
4D

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