Hands-on with the Cowon S9

Cowon's S9 touchscreen MP3 player has arrived, bringing the expected music, video and photo playback, and extras such as FM radio, Bluetooth, voice/radio/line recording, a Flash player and a text reader.

So far, we'd say the S9's design is spot-on, with a slight curved back and a bright 16:9-formatted OLED screen set at a 480x272-pixel resolution. The user interface is also quite impressive, combined with Cowon's choice of a capacitive touch screen, the onscreen control is about as attractive and responsive as you can get without investing in an iPod Touch.

The Cowon S9 comes in 8GB and 16GB capacities priced at US$199 and US$239, respectively, but there is no word on local pricing yet. The cost could be worth it if you're a real stickler for sound quality, as the S9 is Cowon's first player to include the suite of BBE+ sound enhancements. The BBE+ suite improves on the already impressive BBE effects included in CNET faves like the D2 and iAudio 7, adding more than 30 presets in addition to a five-band EQ with independent bandwidth control.

Now for the bad news. The first drawback we've noticed on the Cowon S9 is that it just feels kind of cheap — which is a complaint we rarely have with Cowon. Unlike the glass and steel design of the iPod Touch, the S9 uses an all-plastic design that — though lightweight — has a hollow and flimsy feel. Even the all-plastic Samsung P2 feels a little more durable and substantial.

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