GameStop stock surge Super Mario 3D World Holocaust denial online 'Oumuamua and Avi Loeb You might have to return your stimulus money Sundance Film Festival Otter with Google Meet

Cowon goes red, upgrades firmware, and drops prices

Cowon releases a new-and-improved red version of the Cowon D2 in the United States and lowers prices on a handful of products.

Photo of red Cowon D2.
With the new color and notepad feature, the latest D2 is a music-loving doodler's dream come true. It's like a little digital Etch-a-Sketch. CNET Networks
Photo of Cowon D2 notepad utility.
A new firmware upgrade gives the D2 a fun sketchpad utility perfect for drawing robot doodles. I didn't mean for this robot to look like it's flipping you off, honest. CNET Networks

Cowon just keeps showering us with good news. Earlier I reported on the U.S. release of the Cowon iAudio 7, and now I've got photos of the latest red version of the Cowon D2. The red D2 was given a very soft launch here in the United States and appears to have been available directly and through a few online retailers for the past several weeks. To sweeten the deal, Cowon has dropped prices on some models of the D2, U3, F2, and A2 by around $10 to $20.

Heard of it?

The cherry on top is a new firmware upgrade to the D2 (v2.45) available directly from Cowon's Web site. With the upgrade comes a seemingly dull notepad utility that in reality is a dope sketchpad application, ideal for doodlers. I was a little disappointed that it doesn't allow you to doodle and listen to music at the same time, but it does save your doodles as bitmap images in the D2's photo directory, allowing you to drag sketches onto your computer. The utility lets you draw in a handful of colors with variable line thickness. I'll be using it to secretly draw childish portraits of people on the subway.