Gadgetry pretending to the iPod-throne is nothing new. Over the years we’ve seen a whole host of mp3 players fall by the wayside as Apple’s device and its subsequent spin-offs charge to the forefront of the music-tech world.
So when we were sent this adorable little Cowon E2, I’ll be honest, my hopes were not high. But in fact, it’s a pretty decent device. Priced almost identically to the latest iPod shuffle (around £40) it’s in with a fighting chance, so let’s get down to business.
Looks-wise Apple have long stuck with their ‘it’s convenient because you can hook it to your stuff’ angle, whilst Cowon seem to be encouraging us to stick their device on our keychains with that stylish metal loop. Frankly this seems like a better idea – how often are you out without your keys? I prefer the look of the E2 – the model we recieved is in black, and it looks very much like something out of an 80’s sci-fi film, (this is a big plus) and it’s small and light enough to lose down the back of the sofa with minimal effort.
Design-wise the E2 is pleasingly minimalist when it comes to buttons – a power button, a track navigator and volume controls are all you’re getting. There’s also an EQ button which cycles you through your sound options, a cheery sounding American voice letting you know which is which.
Sound quality is impressive, and the included headphones are decent enough. Audiophiles will of course want to use their own high-end phones, but these are at least better than the tin-cans the iPod ships with. One glaring omission however is a lack of left/right signage on the earbuds – unless you’re very familiar with the panning of your music, you’re never going to figure out which is which.
Moving onto storage space – our model has 2GB of storage space, which is very reasonable for a device designed for short bursts of activity, but won’t hold a huge amount of music in less compressed file formats. The E2 connects to your computer via an included USB cable that pleasingly fits in the headphone jack.
Connectivity is far and away the E2’s greatest asset – plug it in and open an explorer (or mac equivalent) window, then drop and drag your sound files in. That’s it. when you eject and plug the headphones in, your music will play whatever you left inside that folder. This is a great system, mainly because it’s extremely quick. Anyone who’s tried to quickly transfer a few tracks with iTunes before popping down the shops will know that cumbersome specialist software slows everything down to a crawl. This is not the case with the E2 – you can add and remove tracks with relative ease.
The downside however is that the E2 doesn’t support AAC audio. For those who don’t recognise the term, all music purchased from the iTunes store is in this format. A wide range of other music services offer their tunes in this format too. Consequently it’s unlikely you’ll be able to pop music you’ve previously purchased onto the E2.
If you happen to have all your music in file formats the E2 supports (the range is quite wide aside from the omission of AAC) then I can recommend this as an affordable and user-friendly alternative to the iPod Shuffle. If, on the other hand you’re one of the many people who rely on iTunes and similar software for your music, then you’re advised to look elsewhere.
2 Comments
Things that look like they areb out of 80s sci fi are always the best looking things.
Unless it looks like it comes from the future section of Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey. That looks even better.
It looks like a device a Japanese gangster would use to chop people’s thumbs off. Need.