Cowon J3

The Best personal hi-fi around – Got 4gb model from Ebay (don't bother, get 8gb from Oz as it works out same price), added 32gb microSD and I am as happy as a pig in it! No cons, all plus and a fantastic machine.

Excellent – Anyone serious about sound quality should at least consider the Cowon J3. After all, the basic function of a portable music player should be about producing good sound. If the sound quality is only average, what is the point of bells and whistles? This is my second Cowon MP3 player. I had a Sony in between. The sound quality is the biggest plus for the J3. The Sony was noticeably not as good for sound quality. I have had to buy better headphones because after getting the J3, as the shortcomings of my Sennheiser PX100 headphones became obvious. My kids have iPods, but I keep asking them what's the point of having an MP3 player with lots of gimmicky apps, but with only average sound quality? After owning Cowon MP3 players, it will be difficult to even consider other brands for my next player. Menus are a little difficult to get used to, but once you know where the commonly used functions are, it is not an issue.

Good – Really love this little media player. The sound quality from this thing so good that it sounds like your sitting infront of the band. The sound chip in this thing is unreal. I played the same file on my ipod then on the cowon j3 (same head phones) and it was like black and white. The ipod really struggles to match the audio output in terms of qulity and refinement.

The most frustrating aspect of the j3 is the menu system, often struggling through non-intuitive sub menus and menus to do simple tasks.

I watch a lot of movies with this device as well.

Overall a very product, very few let downs and the best alternative to ipods. Excellent sound quality, very light weight, batterly life is mind boggling. Standby time is even more mind boggling. Expandable micro SD card slot. Video playback on the AMOLED screen must be seen to believe. Frustrating menu system. When watching video from micro sd card the whole system slows down. Very pricey compared to other mp3 players. No internet access, no WiFi