Wind-up media players offer the promise of living free of mains sockets, at least some of the time. Trevor Baylis' Revolution, the second in his Eco Media Player series, lives up to the dream by giving you 45 minutes of music playback for every minute you crank its handle. It'll even charge five different brands of phone (Nokia included), returning approximately 3 minutes of talktime for every minute of winding.

The main improvements of this model over the first EMP are the higher storage capacity (4GB, up from 2GB), a better design (piano black rather than rubberised finish) and modestly tweaked interface (slightly easier than the original but still laborious compared to an iPod).

Features are impressive. Music playback is accompanied by decent-looking video, an FM radio capable of recording and a line-in socket that means you can record straight from a microphone or vinyl turntable onto the player.

Sound quality is reasonable rather than exceptional, though we recommend upgrading from the supplied earphones - they sound poor compared to the ones supplied with the iPod range. Thanks to a drag'n'drop interface, the Revolution works with both Macs and PCs; theoretically it should work with Linux too, but we've not been able to test that.

Related links:

• Links - Eco Media Player launch

Tags: Eco Audio MP3 players Trevor Baylis Brands Eco Media Player Revolution

Eco Media Player Revolution MP3 player originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:59:09 +0000

Most portable solar chargers look like toys compared to this, the first mainstream charger capable of powering a laptop. While we like solar gadget chargers such as the Solio Magnesium, the Solargorilla really is in a different league.

For starters, it has one of the biggest solar panels we've seen on a portable charger, helping it convert the UK's relatively weak solar energy into electricity. When we tested the Solargorilla in September, it charged an iPhone from flat to 10 per cent battery in 2 hours and fully charged a Nokia N-Series phone in a day.

While the Solargorilla can theoretically output enough energy to charge a laptop, we found it struggled in the UK. We were unable to make it power our VAIO directly. The only way we could get the Solargorilla to juice our VAIO was using its companion product, the £150 Powergorilla. The Powergorilla's essentially a big battery - you trickle-charge it using the Solargorilla, and it then recharges your gear.

The Solargorilla is robust and easy to use, thanks to a clear screen that indicates when it's charging. It's also helped by a comprehensive box of over 20 adapters for most gadgets and laptops, including the iPhone, PSP, Toshiba laptops and much more. The only real disappointment is the lack of a MacBook adapter, which is sold separately.

Tags: Eco Gadgets Solar Technology Chargers Solargorilla

Solargorilla solar charger originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 12 Dec 2008 15:00:00 +0000