New MP3 Player

[Aleatoire]

I'm in the market for a new MP3 player. So far I'm liking the look of the Cowon J3 player. Does anyone own one of these that could give me an opinion? The Cowon X7 also looks nice for its extreme battery life and storage capacity although sound and video quality are primarily what I'm after and I don't know how it compares. Any other suggestions are also welcome.

 

[jaguarskx]

I own the Cowon S9 32GB player. The Cowon J3 is merely a slightly upgraded version of it with a SD expansion slot.

If you are looking for an extremely easy to use, slick interface interface, then stop reading here.

Cowon S9 / J3 series basically have the best audio quality of all portable media players which is one of the main reasons I bought the S9. It supports many audio formats, especially FLAC which is the format I use. I recommend replacing the headphones it comes with 'cause like any default headphones, they all suck.

Video quality and colors are pretty good. The screen is a glossy 3.3" AMOLED which helps makes colors vibrant. I use it to play XviD coded files, but it also supports DivX and WMV which I never tried. The good thing about the S9/J3 is that it can playback video files that are higher than the resolution of the screen (480 x 272). It can playback my DVD rips which are 720 x 306 or 720 x 400 without any problems. So there is no need to re-encode to a smaller resolution. I don't have any 1080p material, but I think that's asking too much.

The interface is a bit basic and slightly quirky, but if audio and video quality is at the top of your list, then this fact should not deter you from buying one.

 

[Aleatoire]

Sweet, that's what I wanted to hear! I've read good things about the audio quality and the video looks good to me but I just wanted a first hand opinion from an owner.
A good UI is pretty far down on my list and I'm sure I'll get used to any quirky bits. Audio and video quality are pretty much what I'm after. I have decent headphones so that isn't a problem.

Looks like the J3 will be my next player unless anyone can come up with something better