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Cowon announces CE-based R7 media tablet, earns a few perplexed stares

Cowon makes some pretty slick looking Android PMPs, as well as some more underwhelming devices running Windows CE. The latest in the latter category is the R7 -- a 7-inch media player that's being billed as "full HD" (a claim that makes Cowon full of something else). Despite being the size of a small tablet the R7 display is only 800 x 480, though, it will output 1080p over HDMI. While the low-res screen and aging CE 6.0 OS are nothing to get excited about, there are some positives: epic battery life and support for an absurd number of formats and codecs. And, since the R7 comes packing up to 64GB of internal storage and sports a microSD slot, you'll have plenty room to keep you swimming in both audio and video. Sure, Android probably would have made more sense and a WiFi connection for browsing the web would be greatly appreciated but, you've got to admire Cowon's stubborn insistence on doing things its own way... right?