Review: Cowon S9

Cowon's new personal media player lineup include the O2 and the S9. I purchased the 16GB Titanium Black S9 for $239.99 + tax at Amazon but prices may vary. Some of the features of this PMP include

- 3.3" AMOLED touchscreen
- User Customizable Interface (UCI)
- 52 hours of audio or 11 hours of video (Cowon's claim)
- FM radio and Stereo Bluetooth
- excellent audio quality with BBE+
- G-sensor
- Flash support

Since this may seem to be an iPod Touch competitor (which include in the list Sony's new X1000, iRiver's Spinn and Samsung's P3) the Touch includes a very large Apps store along with WiFi capabilities. Personally, I do not require internet access on my PMP and would rather that the player focused on audio and video quality. Cowon does not dissapoint with the audio and video quality as well as the support of many codecs.

The G-sensor allows changing the orientation of certain screens such as video playback to utilize the entire beautiful screen. This sensor can also be used in games (shown by Cowon with the game Hunter) which is quite sensitive but the game developping groups are still working on fully implementing this feature into their flash games and apps. Although there is a lacking of an Apps store, a great community is established and flash games, apps and UCI's are shared and improved amongst the community (link below).

For anyone looking for a small toouchscreen PMP with great audio and video quality, check out the Cowon S9 with a 32GB version coming soon to North America.

http://www.iaudiophile.net

Video Games this summer

Currently I only own a Wii for a console and may eventually purchase a 360 or PS3 in the future. Punch-Out!! is coming out tomorrow and that should be a good game. I'm going through Super Punch-Out (from SNES) and realized I'm not all too great at the game but it is worth the challenge. I would've liked to have seen a few more fighters in the Wii version but hopefully it will satisfy.

Other games that are on my radar include: The Conduit, Resident Evil Archives, Monster Hunter Tri, Final Fantasy CC: The Crystal Bearers and Muramasa Demon Blade. I still have a large library of Wii and Gamecube games to go through this summer and hopefully I do get around to them.

I wish complete Tales of Symphonia (I and II), maybe Pikmin 2, Rune Factory Frontier, Fire Emblem (both Wii and GC), Donkey Kong Jungle Beat Wii, Final Fantasy Crsytal Chronicles and Wario Land Shake It during the summer or maybe by the end of the year.

I am currently playing through Rune Factory Frontier and Donkey Kong Jungle Beat but RFF has slowed down lately (logged 30+ hours so far) and I will stop when I finish the dungeons and hopefully beat the main storyline with decent weapons and pets. I should be able to beat DK:JB soon since it seems to be a shorter game (hopefully under 10 hours) and I haven't put all that much time into it. I am also working on improving with Brawl. I may start posting some of the videos later on in the year, unless you want to see some 1vs1 against CPU level 9...

A last shout out to any Wii owners, please try out Madworld. It just had a price drop and anyone that enjoys comedic gore and over the top commentary should pick up a copy. It is rated M so any kiddies out there should avoid the game until you hit the age of majority.

If there are also any other games that I missed but should look into or if you want reviews of some games, comment below.

PS: I am also looking forward to Street Fighter IV and Resident Evil 5 on PC. SFIV looks good on PC and hopefully my computer can run it.

Summer Movies

2009 has a decent lineup of summer movies which I am looking forward to. The main genres I care for are usually action and comedy movies. Amongst the action movies are: Terminator Salvation, Transformers 2, and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Not sure which one will be the best of the group but I am expecting more story/acting in Terminator and more action sequences in Transformers.

Other movies that are on my radar include: Public Enemies, Bruno, Funny People, Extract, The Hangover, District 9, and ... Astro Boy. The last one may seem out of place but I will usually give a good anime franchise movie a chance, plus Kristen Bell does one of the voices.

Bruno is for anyone that enjoys Sacha Baron Cohen ruining peoples lives and hopefully it lives up to the expectation. My guess is that people will either love it or hate it with barely any middle ground for opinions because of the extremes Cohen will push.

Lastly, Extract is a film written and directed by Mike Judge probably most known for Office Space. Another notable movie that most people may have missed from Mike Judge (not really all that much to choose from) is Idiocracy released in 2006 and featuring Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph. It may make you feel dumb watching it but if you have the time, I'd consider it.

First Post

Well here is the first post of this blog. Hopefully I will keep it updated once in awhile. I hope to post some videos in the near future of some acoustic guitar covers, just started learning on my own so nothing too complicated. I'll also post random stuff about the items I have (technology, video games and audio centered for now) or plan to get. If there are any songs that people are interested in hearing, just mention it, I hope to use the feedback to improve. All comments are welcomed!