Cowon has officially launched it’s much-anticipated A3 portable media player in the United States, hoping to carve away some market share from a certain Cupertino company by offering a large-screened portable device simple enough to appeal to novice users, and powerful enough to engage hardcore digital media fans.
“The A3 has improved upon the popular A2 with a new look and upgraded features that maximize video performance and digital media storage,” said Cowon America’s senior product manager Francis Choi, in a statement. “The A3’s bright, widescreen color LCD is perfect for enjoying movies on the go—and its audiophile-quality digital audio player works with all popular audio formats and high-definition lossy and lossless codecs.”
The Cowon A3 sports a 4-inch, 800 by 480 pixel LCD display, an FM radio and recorder, voice recorder (with built-in microphone), integrated stereo speakers, and USB 2.0 connectivity. The A3 can serve as a photo viewer (supporting a variety of image formats, including RAW) as well as a video playback device supporting AVI, WMV, ASF, MPEG-4, DivX, XviD, WMV, H.264 MP, and a variety of other video codecs. Of course, the A3 also acts as a muci player, supporting MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, Ogg FLAC, WAV, AAC/AAC+, AC3, among other formats—even Apple Lossless, although that doesn’t mean it supports music purchased through Apple’s iTunes store.
Cowon says the A3 should offer up to nine hours of audio playback and seven hours of video playback on a single charge of the device’s built-in lithium-ion battery. The device also supports direct recording from external A/V devices like TVs, VCRs, and camcorders; the device also decode high-definition source video (up to 1,280 by 720) for playback on its internal display.
The A3 is available in 40 GB and 60 GB for $349 and $399, respectively, via JetMall, Amazon.com, Newegg.com, eBay, and other authorized retailers.
