PMP is the lifeblood of Cowon and there isn't a year without the release of a new player from the Korean company. Stepping into 2012, Cowon just launches Z2 Plenue to succeed its first Android-based D3 PMP. The Z2 is essentially the same as D3 with a few notable differences. The Z2 has replaced D3's underpowered CPU with a 1Ghz Telechips Cortex A8 CPU, a 800Mhz VPU (for Full HD playback) and a 320Mhz Mali OpenGL accelerator GPU. It also upped the RAM to 512MB from D3's 170MB to boost multi-tasking performance. Cowon mentioned NTFS file system in the ads; presumably, that means the Z2 won't reject files that are larger than 4GB. And speaking of files, the player still has a micro-SDHC slot that will give you up to 32GB more storage. The Z2's screen is still a 3.7" 800 x 480 AMOLED which should be easier on the battery life as it doesn't use backlight for the material itself is light emitting. If you find the screen is too small for watching for 1080p MKV, then the onboard micro-HDMI should be a welcome addition. There's even micro-USB so you won't stuck with proprietary chargers. WiFi, Bluetooth, FM radio, microphone and built-in speakers are standard fare for a PMP. So at least you could use the Z2 Plenue as a Skype phone. As with other Cowon players, the Z2 can play almost any lossy or lossless file you throw at it, provided it's not DRM'ed. And we're certain there are a host of other features that will appeal to audiophiles. Let's just hope Cowon further improves its tweaked Android 2.3 Gingerbread platform which got some bad press before with the D3. Lastly, it doesn't sound like Cowon is prepared to bring the Z2 outside of Korea yet for one obvious reason. Prices range from $230 for 8GB to $300 for 32GB.
