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The Cowon A3 with its recently increased capacity of 80GB is set to be in the US market by May 26 of this year. The original A3 once topped out at 60GB, now the larger 80GB model is expected to be priced at $440, in contrast to what had originally been rumored to be $681.

Following this positive development, Cowon has also officially unveiled their latest toy – the Q5W. Its capacity is also set to top out at 80GB. The Q5W is expected to be released in late June for a price of $600. The Q5W promises to be a high performing portable video player. Reviews mention its high-quality audio playback, an Internet browser that is Wi-Fi enabled, Bluetooth audio streaming, and MSN messenger, among others.

The Q5W is clearly a big leap ahead of the Cowon A3, though both players have the same storage capacity. Some have noted though, that consumer are a bit discouraged of the high price of Cowon’s Q5W.

Via [Engadget]

One of Cowon’s earlier portable media player’s, the A3, originally only came in two different models, a 30GB or a 60GB model. Now, Cowon has announced the availability of a new, larger version, which features 80GB of storage. Cowon is a little slow in getting mass storage in their portable media player’s as many other companies have already added 80GB’s and more into their player’s, but hey, it’s never too late.

The specs of the newly updated A3 are pretty much the same from last time, but I will recap them anyway. It boasts a very nice 4-inch screen, 800 x 480 display, 16 million colors and comes with a FM radio. Additionally, it has a voice recorder, USB connectivity, records video in MP4, has 1280 x 720 HD output, and codec support which includes FLAC, DivX, and OGG.

The A3 is set to cost 448 Euros or around $698 US. It is pretty expensive, but considering all of the features it comes with, it’s pretty nice. No word on when exactly when the 80GB model is going to be released.

Via [PMP Today]

Rumor had it that Cowon would be coming out with a 16GB model of their D2 portable media player, however, until now it was simply just a rumor. Recently, that rumor has been confirmed as Cowon has officially announced their D2 with 16GB of storage. This announcement came from one of Cowon’s main retailers, Jetmall.

So far, the price of the 16GB D2 is relatively high, considering what some other 16GB portable media players are retailing for. The D2 is set to cost $240, however, if you want to add a 16GB SDHC card to the mix, it will cost an additional $70. Basically, a 32GB D2 would round out at $310. Even then, that price is still a little bit too high for my liking. Going back to the base device, the 16GB D2 costs $240. Keep in mind the 16GB Creative Zen costs $180 and the 16GB Sansa View is $150. Of course on the flipside their are some that are retailing higher such as the 16GB Sony NWZ-A729 which is priced at $290 and the 16GB Sony NWZ-A829 for $320.

So there are a lot of portable media players under the D2’s price, yet there are also some that are over, so it’s right in the middle and ultimately should sell pretty well. If Cowon wanted their 16GB D2 to be the one of the most popular portable media players of its class, they should consider lowering the price into the ballpark of $150 - $180.

Via [AnythingButiPod]

The popular Cowon portable media player, the N3, recently underwent a major appearance change. Previously the N3 had a shiny aluminum casing, however it now has a wooden casing - Burl Walnut to be exact. Otherwise, it still comes with the same features as before, and it still remains a Portable Navigation Device.

The N3 runs on a sweet Alchemy AU1250 600Mhz CPU, comes with a nice, big 7-inch touchscreen, boasting 16.7 million colors, audio playback, video playback, and image viewing. Other features include an electronic dictionary, Picture-In-Picture, and GPS, hence the PND. No word on whether the pricing is going to be higher, but it makes sense that it would be higher due to the wooden casing, and it is only going to be available in the Korean market.

Via [Akihabara News]

Cowon has recently made some great PMP’s, however, the pricing was always a little bit on the high side so it was good of Cowon to drop some of their prices. They cut down prices on the Q5W, A3, and the iAudio 7.

Beginning with the Q5W, they cut off $40 from the original price and it even comes with a free GPS cradle with a purchase, which is normally $199. The 16GB iAudio 7 went down to $209, which is about $90 lower than the original price. Finally, they took off about $20 from the 30GB A3. You can check out all these new prices at their JetMall website. This seems to be a great move by Cowon and is sure to boost their sales of their PMP’s especially the Q5W.

Read [JetMall] Via [Crave]

Cowon has released their N3 portable media player, with some impressive specs, but very similar to the Q5. The N3 features a 800 x 480 7-inch touchscreen display, GPS, a DMB tuner and supports a wide variety of formats to include DivX/XviD. The N3 is powered by a 600MHz Alchemy AU processor, runs Windows CE 5.0 and has two SDHC slots, which is good because there is not any internal memory. No word on price or availability date.

Via [dapreview.net]