The Q5w is another product from Cowon. It is a Portable Media Player. I had previously owned an iAudio X5 and loved it. It's death was untimely. However, it served me well up until it's last breath. That's saying a lot. I decided to stick with Cowon and was looking for something with less moving parts so it could potentially last longer than my iAudio X5. I also thought that I'd be getting the same quality of a product that was on par, or better than what I previously had.
(I ordered this off of Amazon as it was $130 cheaper than elsewhere. The original retail price has dropped quite a bit since then.)
I can't honestly say this review is going to be a positive one. Does it offer good play back for video files? Yes. Does it offer good playback for audio files? Yes. Those two criteria are probably the most important. It does those things as it should. Those are not the areas that I'm disappointed with. It's each and every single bell and whistle added to this device that I'm not happy with. Hell, even the touch screen capabilities work as they should AFAIK.
The Big Three - Windows CE
My first and biggest complaint is Windows CE. I can only imagine two things happened here.
1.) Drove up the price. Licenses aren't normally free.
2.) It's Windows... Not exactly known to be bug free.
I've never been a big fan of companies using middleware. I'm even less of a big fan when I notice that companies who have the resources to do things their own way use it. I believe better functionality could have been had if they had developed their own custom firmware. A few less functions may not exist in this device, but that's not really a big deal. It also makes me wonder if that the OS is a battery hog. Windows OS's are not known to be bloat free, which a lot of zombie processes running in the background. Perhaps someone that has more of an in-depth knowledge about Windows CE can clarify this issue for me?
(I don't like middleware for a couple of reasons. The first reason being is that it usually causes more problems than it aims to fix. The second being is that it takes a lot of time to become accustomed to how it works and then it takes more time to make it work right with whatever you're putting it into.)
The Big Three - Pretenttious Nature
My second biggest complaint is the pretenttious nature of the device. As soon as you turn on the device, the loading screen needs to tell you that it's a "Premium" PMP. Once it's done loading and the wrapper they programmed for Windows loads up, the wallpaper also has a need to tell you that it's a "Premium" PMP. And when you're done with the device and turn it off, guess what? You get to see it again!
So, hey, assholes, what makes it a premium device? You're shoving this idea down my throat. I had already bought this device over the myriad of other choices out there. So why are you shoving this idea down my throat? Is there some insecurity there? Doubts that this device may not be "premium"? Whatever. I just don't understand the need to bombard me every seemingly non-intrusive chance you get. Seems like a wasted effort. In the end, every time I see this, I just want to say, "Oh piss off".
The Big Three - User Interface (UI)
The UI is clunky as far as the audio portion is concerned. It's just a cluttered mess. There's all of this information that I necessarily don't need to be seeing. Here's an example and how I think they should have done things:
Anything in the white box can be put into a folder. They can label it as options, or whatever. I do have slight reservations about what to do with "DPL list", but they could also simply add a button for that in the "play" area.
They have other buttons there that do other things. The options on the either left or right side that I did not want touched can be clumped together. I think the "Music" looking button can be made a little larger and put at the top of that general section of "buttons". I think the "playing" is fine. If I want to go back to what's "playing" if I'm in the options folder or in the file list, it should be as easy as hitting that button. Quit should always be an option to exit out of the audio portion entirely and go back to the main menu.
The superfluous things should be removed. They're either "extras" that are probably barely used, or just redundant. I don't care about the album art. It can go. I don't have my stuff foldered in a way where I'd use that. Sorry. The "Jet Effect" I don't care about. If I wanted to care, I could go into the "Jet Effect" menu and mess with the equalizer. Whatever information it currently shows is irrelevant to me. The "next", "previous", "pause (play)", "stop" buttons are already in the "play" area. I don't need separate buttons for them. Anyone who hasn't taken the time to make sure they know nothing about technology already knows what those symbols do by using other appliances in their home for the past few decades.
How to deal with the excess space and rearrange it? I don't know. There's a lot of options that would currently be better than what we have now. And this is just for the Audio UI. The Video UI could probably use some of these changes too. I can imagine most people would be viewing their files in full screen anyway, so it's not as big of a deal in that department.
(I know I can change how the UI looks myself, but how? I can't easily find any information on this. Even if I can change it to my liking, it doesn't excuse the fact that the default UI isn't as good as it could be.)
Other Things I Don't Like
This came with no user manual, but instead with a "quick start guide" in a thousand languages, disguised as a users manual.
I don't like how the Radio feature doesn't work without headphones (which I had to find out from the actual users manual). Instead of building an internal antenna for this, they decided to use the headphones. Now as long as you've partially plugged in the headphones and you hold onto them, you can use the external speakers for this to work for a small audience. Disappointing.
I'm also disappointed with how the Wifi does not work. I can not connect to my own home network (which is being broadcasted as a mix of g/n), and I can't connect to any of the open b or g networks in the neighborhood. While I don't find myself using the Wifi ever, what if I needed to? Instead of paying for stupid MB charges on my cellphone or using my minutes there, I could potentially not do that. This is assuming I'm in a Wifi hotspot, but if I am and need directions, I'd like to be able to use Google for free to find some directions.
If I need to upgrade Windows CE? I'm being told I need to pay for it. Hopefully there's nothing about Windows CE that'll make me need to upgrade it.
I've also have had problems getting the device to properly charge. Sometimes it will only charge for 30 minutes and then tell me it's fully charged. After a few tries of charging it, it finally starts to charge normally... but why? Is my device defective? I don't know! Defective might explain why the Wifi doesn't work either.
Ok, Mr. I Hate Everything. Is There Anything You Do Like?
I do like what they've done with the sound output. At a setting of 35 (out of 40), it's fairly loud, but not too loud. My iAudio was just as loud at about a setting of 15 (I think that went up to 40 as well, but it's been a while). So while there's less output, I have more control at the lower spectrum. This suits me as I now can more easily fine tune the sound with my headphones so I can listen to this while at work and still hear everyone around me. Now of course you can't be halfway across the room and expect to hear every sound, but I never plan on being too far away from any portable electronic device that I take with me unless I know it's under lock and key.
I do like the fact that once again, no skimping on supported codecs for both audio and video. A good portion of my video files use Divx and Xvid codecs. I doubt I'll need to do much re-encoding of any video files I have if I want to put them on there. Hassle free for me and many users who also like to use Divx or Xvid. The audio codecs? Just about anything that is remotely popular. Free? They're using it. Royalties? They're using it!
The video playback is crisp and clear, assuming you don't encode your stuff in low resolutions. A low resolution always looks worse than a higher resolution. Whatever resolution, you've used, if you go full screen, it'll resize it to fit the window. The reason why it looks so nice is that the contrast ratio is comparable to a lot of monitors you can buy for your PC today. 500:1 for a device this small? That's surprisingly good. The brightness is a little on the not so bright side (only 50 less than your average PC monitor), but I doubt anyone is going to complain when the contrast ratio more than makes up for it. This also ensures that when viewing your pictures or reading text, it won't look like some ugly pimply wrinkly ass.
So What Else?
There really is no "what else" here. That's pretty much it. Any feature I haven't listed is because I didn't use it. I didn't use because I either didn't know how to off hand, or because I have even less than zero need or want to go out of my way to try it out.
In the end, I feel ripped off. I paid $500 for a small Windows Box with a "beefed up version of Windows Media Player". Why on earth would any person want that? If I could have found another iAudio X5 on the market that wasn't ridiculously over-priced, I would have jumped it on. Live and Learn, right?