Cowon S9 Curve

"The Cowon is getting a lot more professional level support in Korea, so just join the iaudiophile forums and anything that comes up will normally be posted eg themes, games etc.
And most apps are made by Cowon themselves and released through firmware, and unlike with those orchard players, is FREE. The s9 will also support games from the Spinn, and irivers fans are incredible programmers, so there will most likely be some awesome content for the S9.
The only advantages on the touch are wifi and itunes support, and, in the age of smartphones, few people don't already have wifi, and itunes support is arguably a disadvantage as well. Apps are purely up to the user, if you want to spend the twice the money you spent on the player on apps, be my guest, but I'm not stupid.
The advantages on the S9 however are practically endless: sound quality, file support, customisabiltiy, video quality, individuality, ui, advanced 360 degrees accelerometer, dmb, dvb (freeview), fm quality, line in recording, picture quality, BBE+, Mach3 Bass etc. scene select, dual core cpu, price, style... i could go on. lol"

"One would hope that Cowon's $200/240 vs Apple's $230/300 will make a dent or force the later to drop their prices... but I suspect it won't."

"It remains to be seen how much developer support the S9 Curve will get. One of the most compelling features of the iTouch is the App Store and related programs and games. The specs on this device are very nice, but if there's no apps to really take advantage of the hardware it's all for naught."

"Exactly Acreo... It isn'y meant to be an alternative to i-Pod Touch or i-Phone. The S9 is definitely superior to both of them really. With great sound quality, amazing range of file format supports, awesome screen, customisability, recording options, long battery life etc. are just some of the +ves for S9 over i-Pod Touch.
With the frequent and free firmware upgrades unlike Apple it surely wins there too.
I am deifinitely more than happy without its support for Wi-Fi or other apps. :)"

"Mattmach33 pretty much has it down pat. The iAudioPhiles forum already has 3 large Flash games packages that bring a total of over 9000 games to the S9 not including all the other ones you can get for the S9 by yourself.

People seem to always compare the iTouch and iPhone to the S9. The S9 wasn't produced to be a alternative to either. It's designed as a better PMP (portable multimedia player) rather than a handheld MID (mobile internet device). Besides the obvious lack of WiFi and custom apps (the ones that involve more than just Flash), I feel the S9 is superior to the iTouch."