The Cowon V5 didn't exactly go over well with our members when we first reported on it, but that's nothing compared to the ass-kicking that Donald Bell of Cnet just dished out. I haven't used the player myself, but after reading the article, I have to wonder if Cowon somehow personally harmed Mr. Bell or his family. The article is rather one-sided, throwing out one criticism after another, without nary a comment on what the V5 is good at. Any comments on sound quality? Of course not! This is Cowon we're talking about; who buys one of their players for that?

I'll side with Cnet on what sounds like a ridiculous GUI, filled with silly icons of men chasing women, and other facets that may just express the cultural differences between the US and Korea on what we find appealing. There is a good chance this issue can be alleviated by a user-created theme however. The article also downplays the V5's video support, and the quality of playback. Surprisingly, Donald Bell also implicates himself, on behalf of Cnet, for being advocates of piracy when he writes "Sure, the Cowon V5 can output our DivX torrent of "Star Wars" over HDMI, but the touch-screen user interface is a cluttered, emasculating, eye-straining, deliberately confusing facepalm." Who would of thought a site as big as Cnet, whose parent company is CBS, would openly express the use of copyrighted material obtained through illicit sources.

Anyway here's a few Highlowlights of the blog post:



No doubt many of the complaints are deserved, but it also came off as terribly nitpicky. Engadget has also published a review which ironically is more balanced in its analysis. You can read that here

Cnet: Cowon V5 supports HDMI, DivX, and WTF?