Eco Media launches the EMP-MX72 - a wind-up media player

Full-featured device gives 40 minutes play from a 1 minute wind

13 August 2007 10:43 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Trevor Baylis, the inventor of the wind-up radio, has turned his attention to MP3 players.

The result? The Eco Media player with an eco windup system that powers the player for 40 minutes on 1 minute of winding - although you can still charge the media player through the USB port of your computer.

The Eco Media player has a 1.8-inch LED screen and 2GB of internal memory that can expanded via the SD memory card slot.

It boasts plug and play ease of use and shows up as a external disk drive when connected to your computer for simple drag and drop file transfer.

The multi-tasking player can play music (MP3, WMA and WAV), has an in-built FM tuner that can record radio, can play MPEG4 videos, is a voice-recorder, can be used to view photos with slide-show functionality and can also be used as an e-book reader.

There is a 3.5mm headphone jack, and the player also boasts a "powerful" built-in speaker, albeit only a mono one.

It also offers stereo line-in digital recording of external analogue devices, such as cassette or record players, with a choice of bitrates.

Still don't think it's fully featured enough for your tastes? It's also a bright LED torch and can function as an emergency wind up charger for most mobile phones.

It might not be the prettiest of gadgets, but it's environmentally friendly, offers a good range of features - and - it's British - patriotic, green gadget lovers could do a lot worse.

Priced at £169.99, the EMP-MX71 is available to pre-order for delivery at the end of August.