Until the day I enter a three-day long paintball tournament, I will give this green gadget a miss. NHC's EcoLong MP3 player, recently released in Japan, promises 85 hours of battery life off of one AAA battery. And that's just great. However, the camouflage-colored device plays only MP3 and WMA music, and well, it's ugly.
I learned of it from EcoGeek.org, which by the way is a good read for tech users interested in environmental issues. From NHC's Japanese -language site, I gleaned that it's 1.44 by 0.73 by 3.07 inches (small but thick) and weighs 1.2 ounces. It comes with an FM radio and has a USB port. It stores 1GB of MP3 and WMA music, but according to Engadget, won't play DRM music. The screen looks small too.
To be fair, the EcoLong also comes in white. And people spending several days in the back country might find this $50 product cheap enough to buy as a second music player. I hope the EcoLong raises the battery-life bar for other gadget manufacturers. A world where we use fewer batteries would be a better place. But for now, I'll stick to recycling my batteries and using rechargeable ones.
Check out the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation's Web site to search by zip code for a battery drop-off location near you.
