Cowon Shows off Three Stylish Touch PMPs

With the gargantuan IFA 2008 show just around the corner, Cowon today started building momentum for its own upcoming offerings by dropping select details about three upcoming players. The Cowon S9, O2 and L3 all carry generous touch-screens and a variety of multimedia capabilities. The S9 Curve lives up to its name with a slim body that’s square from a top-down view, but has a pronounced curve on the back of its chrome-edged case. The biggest attraction besides its unusual styling will be its 3.3-inch OLED touch screen, the first to combine capacitive touch and OLED technology in a PMP. It also sports a 500MHz dual-core CPU, Bluetooth, FM radio, dictionary, flash user interface, TV output, and orientation sensor to change the display when rotated. The O2 bulks up with an even bigger screen – 4.3 inches to be exact. It will have a dictionary, recording capabilities, an SD card slot, TV output, speaker, and 10-band EQ. Cowon will produce it in 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB capacities. Finally, the L3 will attempt to roll a PMP and GPS unit into one with a massive 7-inch touch screen and mounting points for use in a car. Besides carrying a SIRF III GPS chip for navigation, it will handle movies, music, pictures and text. One of its more innovative features will be “shadow touch” buttons, which react to merely hovering a finger over them. None of the units have been tagged with prices or release dates yet, but Cowon will likely offer more details at the upcoming IFA 2008 show, which begins on Friday.