Solar-Powered MP3/Video Player

[D/\SH]

Solar-Powered MP3/Video Player

Wed Jan 9, 2008 8:34PM EST

It's not exactly the sleekest portable media player I've laid eyes on, but it'll outlast your iPod during, say, a 10-day hiking trip in the boonies—and it'll charge your dying cell phone or your laptop in the process.

The eMotion EM-SOL1GIG is pretty chunky as media players go: at five inches across, an inch thick, and a hefty 10 ounces, you won't be putting this sucker in your jeans pocket anytime soon. Open it up, however, and you'll find a pair of solar panels that'll charge the player's lithium-ion battery in about three or four hours (good for 17 hours of music playback). Even better, the player comes with a set of six connectors for charging laptops, cell phones, and other portable devices.

Specs-wise, the EM-SOL1GIG holds its own quite nicely. It can handle MP3, WMA, and WAV audio files, along with AVI and MPEG-4 video; the 3.5-inch, 320-by-240-pixel display was decent enough, if a little short of eye-popping. The player also has a photo viewer and a TXT file reader, along with a game emulator that'll run NES, GameBoy, and Sega game ROMs. Oh, and if you get lost in the woods, the built-in LED flashlight can help you find your way back to the tent.

Pretty nice, although the eMotion media player ($149, available now) falls down a bit in the storage department—it has only 1GB of internal flash memory (a 4GB version is also on tap in the $185 range), although the SD memory card slot can expand that total by another 2GB.