iPod touch vs Cowon S9

 

With its slightly curved design, the iPod touch feels great to handle and it looks fantastic too ... for a few minutes at least. In fact, without a protective cover, the player's chrome finish quickly becomes covered in fingerprints, and then in turn becomes covered in scratches. Once that happens you'll be only too happy to keep it in your pocket rather than show it off to your mates!

The screen is pretty good. It's not too prone to scratches, and although it's incredibly glossy, it's still easy to read. Unfortunately though, it just can't compete with the screen on the S9.

There's not a bad thing to say about the internal software, so long as you don't fancy customising your portable media player, that is. All you can do  is reorganise the applications onto different pages to help keep your photo apps separate from your organisational apps, games etc. And when it comes to organising your audio-video library, it's done by track tag or, well, that's it actually. That's a real pain if the tags aren't filled in properly or if you prefer to organise tracks in folders.

One of the biggest downsides of the iPod has got to be iTunes! It looks so simple yet it soon becomes unnecessarily complicated, especially on PC. To manage audio files properly you have to import them into your library, otherwise get ready for total chaos.

Synchronisation can be pretty absurd too. It all runs along automatically and smoothly, but if you delete a file on your computer that you've still got on your iPod, then it'll be automatically deleted from your iPod next time you hook it up to your computer.

If you should want to copy some music from a friend, or from a PC that's not running iTunes, or a PC which has iTunes configured in a different manner, or any number of similar such situations, then forget it, it's just not possible.

There's a good range of supported formats, but those other than standard MP3 or AAC will, in most cases, need to be re-encoded using iTunes.

There's a clear difference between the types of use on offer in these two portable media players. The iPod is almost certainly aimed at users who want their PMP to do everything their matching mobile phone does too.

And it's true, if you want a multi-functional portable media player that's practical and easy to use, with which you can surf the web, play games, and thousands of other things, then there's no doubt you should choose the iPod touch.

The Cowon, on the other hand, excels in its basic function as a portable music and video player. For users who want no more than to have their whole music library and a few videos in their pocket and at their fingertips, the S9 is an unquestionably good choice. Just don't forget to get a decent pair of headphones so you can really get the best out of it.