Sound choice: Korean maker Cowon is known for portable media players that have exemplary audio reproduction. Its V5HD, which is due to hit the Japanese market on March 5, follows the formula. It employs Cowon's new JetEffect 3.0 technology, which is intended to maximize the sound performance by offering users greater customization, such as in its reverberation.
Cowon is not focused solely on the eardrum, though, as the V5HD sports a 4.8-inch high-definition LCD screen with an 800 × 600 resolution and of course it's a touchscreen. The title gives away its ability to display high-definition, albeit cramped on such a small screen. It also comes with a microphone, USB port and HDMI output. Good hardware is worth little if it can't be used, and crucially the Cowon device is versatile. It can play AVI, WMV, ASF, MP4, MKV and MPEG video files, as well as WAV, MP3, WMA and FLAC audio formats. Taking advantage of its screen, the V5HD can display JPEG, TIFF, PNG and BMP picture files. It runs on the Windows CE 6.0 operating system, which is perhaps not such a strength, but it does come with a RSS reader.
Thankfully, it performs as expected in trumping bigger machines for battery life, reportedly up to 10 hours for video playback and 45 hours of playing music. Despite the good features, the V5HD remains a svelte device with a weight of just 197 grams and dimensions of 128 × 82 × 15.7 mm. Cowon is offering a selection of hard-disk models, which come in 8-gigabyte, 16-gigabyte and 32-gigabyte sizes.