Free Music for D2

The Cowon iAudio D2 is a touch screen MP3 and multimedia Player It has impeccable battery life and an amazing set of advanced features. It's a techies dream, with all kinds of tricks up its sleeve.

Features

The D2 features touch screen controls, an SD card slot, FM radio, voice and radio and line in recording, TV-out, effects presets, as well as regular MP3 and video playback and a picture viewer. The player also has a sleep timer, which is nice to save battery, even though it has amazing battery life to begin with.

Design

Other MP3 Player reviews agree that the D2 is a bit boxy, much like the first generation iRiver Clix, however it is well built and reliable. The power button, volume buttons, microphone port and menu select button are all located on the top of the player within the reach of your index finger when holding the player. The left side of the device has the headphone jack and a pop-open panel that hides the power and USB jacks, as well as the reset button. On the bottom of the player is the SD card slot for expandable memory. It comes with a stylus but it proves to be basically useless because your fingers can operate it much easier. The stylus is also supposed to hold up the D2 as a stand, but it doesn't work all that well. The only things to worry about are scratching the screen and fingerprints (unless you decide the stylus is for you).

Audio Quality

The sound quality is extremely good, and the D2 features one of the strongest amps in any mp3 player. Everything comes out crystal clear, with no fuzz to be heard. It will also play lossless codec's, which when combined with the great audio quality makes for an amazing listening experience. The D2 also features BBE sound enhancements, which aren't perfect but allow some more customization to your sound. The only downside to these effects is how cluttered the sound can be if you try to use too many at once.

Interface

The interface is fairly simple to use, with almost all the controls on the touch screen. The device lacks tactile buttons for use on the go without having to mess with the touch screen. The touch screen itself is very responsive to the stylus or to fingers, but still takes a little getting used to. Operating the menu system isn't hard but it could be simplified a bit. Newer firmware versions added a nicer scrolling feature than the older ones, which makes searching through lists of tracks or anything else easier. The buttons on the top of the device can be specially set when the player is in lock to most functions, however that takes away the volume controls, which isn't very useful.

Performance

The player itself doesn't noticeably lag, and the menus flow together quickly. The screen looks nice and sharp with video, but it could be better (fingerprints don't help either). The battery power is rated to 52 hours of audio and 10 hours of video, and though these seem like ridiculously high numbers, it isn't all that far off. With optimal conditions it could play for that length of time, but even when using extra power and playing odd bitrates it will still last for multiple days.

The D2 is definitely one of the leading MP3 and Multimedia playing devices on the market today. It's very reliable and functional, and is also small and light. The biggest downside it the lack of tactile buttons for player control when the lock is on, but if you don't need to control your MP3 player blind, its absolutely fine. With its amazingly long battery life and features like TV out and radio it's a great little toy to keep on you at all times because it'll always come in clutch.