Cowon bringing Q5 Wi-Fi media player to US

Cowon today announced that it will bring an almost entirely intact version of its Mac- and Windows-compatible Q5W media player to US shores after previously limiting the device to southeast Asia. Adding the W to reflect its wireless abilities, the handheld will strip out Korea-only DMB digital TV tuning support but will have both 802.11g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 to browse the web (including with Flash animations), access other online content, and gain stereo audio support respectively.

Its 5-inch screen is vivid enough for regularly watching DivX, MPEG-4, Windows Media, and XviD clips, according to Cowon: the LCD offers greater-than-DVD resolution (800x480) and a 500:1 contrast ratio that bests most media players.

The Q5W also wields a connector for optional component, RCA, and S-video output, and adds support for less common audio and still image formats such as FLAC, OGG, and Nikon's NEF format for RAW photos. Cowon handles storage through a hard drive and will sell the Q5W with 40GB of storage for $550 and 60GB for $600. It ships in the US by the end of the month, though whether it will appear in retail as well as online is unknown.