Cowon Launches Z2 Plenue PMP, Starts At Rs 18,500 For 8 GB

Do you get annoyed when your listening or gaming sessions on your Android phone are interrupted by incoming calls? Cowon's Z2 Plenue PMP is just what the doc prescribes, for this specific need. This Android 2.3.5 (Gingerbread)-based portable device bears a 3.7" AMOLED panel sporting pixel dimensions of 800x480. The Plenue is powered by a last-generation 1 GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor and a 320 MHz Mali GPU, so don't expect it to play the latest 3D mobile games with fluid framerates.

However, thanks to its 800 MHz VPU (Video Processing Unit), Cowon claims that it can handle 1080p video content, and can also output it to your big-screen TV through an HDMI port. Battery backup is rated at 22 hours for music and 8.5 hours for standard definition video. All popular video formats such as AVI, MPG, MP4, MKV, DivX, XviD, and WMA are supported out of the box. Apart from usual MP3, WAV, and WMA codecs, the PMP plays high-end loss-less audio formats such as FLAC, Monkey Audio (APE), and OGG Vorbis as well.

You can browse the internet, use email and Twitter, in addition to VOIP calling with its Wi-Fi connectivity. Although, access to Google Play Store is not supported, you can always sideload APKs (physically load applications offline) to the device. If you like post-processed audio optimisations, Cowon has included comprehensive Jeteffect 5, which packs in 48 presets, a 5-band EQ filter, and BBE+ enhancements.

The Z2 Plenue PMP is priced at Rs 18,500, Rs 20,500, and Rs 23,500 for the 8, 16, and 32 GB models respectively. Focused portable media players aren't targeted at your regular gadget geek, but those who are fastidious about audio quality definitely appreciate their worth. The 95 dB SNR ratio of the Z2 Plenue should theoretically set it apart from your average smartphone, quality wise.