Wind Up Eco Digital 2GB Torch Media Player and Phone Charger

We’ve seen wind up torches and wind up radios, and we’ve even seen wind up laptops and now, to add to the collection of ecologically sound gadgets, we have a wind up digital media player which will help conserve electricity by requiring you to give your wrist a workout prior to listening to you favourite MP3s or watching video clips.

The Eco Media Player may not look the business – in fact, as far as comparable gadgets go, it looks like some curious ‘80’s throwback – but, terrible aesthetics aside, there’s no doubting that its heart is in the right place. That said, it still comes with its own internal Lithium Ion battery so it’s still not wholly environmentally friendly if not disposed of correctly and, curiously, whilst the Eco Media Player offers wind up power – one minutes of winding equating to up to 40 hours of playback endurance – you also have the option of charging the device via a USB port: which seems somewhat of a sell out to us.

But let’s not be picky – at least you have the option to wind it up or plug it in.

As far as performance and functionality are concerned, the Eco Media Player, whilst hardly up to the specifications of top-notch digital media players, offers a surprising array of features. One of these being that the device can also be used to charge your cell phone following a quick crank (I typed that word most carefully), which, far from being overtly gimmicky is actually a thoroughly commendable secondary application of its green power (USB charging aside). Not only that, but it will also serve as a 0.3W torch, an FM radio and a digital audio recorder.

As far as media compatibility is concerned, the Eco Media Player offers very much what you’d expect. As far as audio is concerned the device accepts MP3, WMA, ASF, Wav and Ogg whilst, from a video perspective, it has ASV (MP4), WMA, AVI and MPEG completely covered. It also accepts JPEG, BMP and GIF file formats allowing the device to serve as a photo viewer, with imagery and video being displayed via a 1.82 LCD colour screen.

Add to the above that the device comes complete with 2GB of internal memory, which can be further expanded with the use of SD cards, and you have a digital music player that may not be cutting edge but that is certainly capable of holding its own.

We’re sure Al Gore would approve (though something tell us that he’d plump for an iTouch if given a choice between the two).

The Eco Media Player retails for £169.99 – approximately $344 / €243 at the time of writing.