The Price: $169

The Verdict: For a piece of crap, this thing is pretty awesome.

Sure, the UI is slow and ugly, the buttons are confusing even after repeated use, and the playable formats are somewhat limiting (yes MP3, WMA, AVI; no AAC or DivX). But hey, it works. It does almost everything advertised.

Putting photos, music, videos, and ROMs on it is a breeze. It came with Super Mario Bros. and Contra Force for Nintendo and Raiden Triad and Street Fighter 2 for Sega, and you can get other ROMs through, let's say, back channels. Video game play is solid, though I recommend only playing very basic games on a screen that small—that is, 3 inches, with 320x240 resolution.

Video playback was great for the preloaded clips, but chopped and stunted with my own (this may have been an encoding problem on my part, but seriously, it only supports 320x240 AVIs, that's pretty weak). The e-book reader is just a glorified text viewer, but it can also do text-to-speech reading in a relatively normal voice. Photo browsing is awkward, but it works. The machine came preloaded with some shots of LL Cool J and Lou Gosset Jr., so who am I to complain?

Hardware wise, there are ups and downs. Two headphone jacks and an obnoxiously loud speaker work fine, but adjusting the volume is a pain since there is no dedicated button. There's an SD slot, but it'll only get you an added 2GB, as it doesn't support SDHC. The nice thing is, the boasted solar charging actually worked, especially for the device itself, but even with other random electronics. My iPod took some finagling, but I figured out how to do it, and it works well. The only thing I couldn't get it to charge was an iPhone. What's up with that?

Of course, as I was finishing up my testing, the device just had to crash; it took an hour of draining the battery just to be able to restart it. Calling tech support in the middle of the afternoon didn't yield any results either, as the company was closed. You're absolutely getting what you pay for with this relatively cheap PMP, but since it's got features you won't find on mainstream players (for legal reasons and otherwise), it is a decent buy. Besides, if you have sunlight, you won't have to worry about a charger. [MediaStreet]

MediaStreet Debuts World's First Solar-Powered Portable Media Player Paired With Charger That Powers Other Mobile Devices

CES, Las Vegas, NV, January7, 2008 - MediaStreet, Inc., an award-winning manufacturer of innovative consumer electronics and services for the digital music and photography markets, announces the world's first solar-powered portable media player, the 1GB eMotion® Solar Portable Media Player. This PMP comes with AC adapter and USB connector (6 varieties) that can recharge most mobile phones, MP3/MP4 players, laptop computers, digital cameras and other portable Lithium battery operated products. All players available immediately.

"We started off developing a product that would allow our customers to charge their portable devices on-the-go using solar energy," says Norm Levy, president of Media Street. "We ended up with a most spectacular device that not only charges your cell phone, laptop and PDA, but it is a robust and power-packed portable media player that you will not want to take your hands off."

eMotion 1GB Solar Portable Media Player

• Transfer music, photos, videos, games on and off player
• 5.5" x 3" x 1"
• SD card slot expansion (2GB SD card maximum capacity)
• Included charger powers most portable devices such as mobile phones, MP3/MP4 players, laptops, digital cameras and other portable Lithium battery devices
• Supports music formats: MP1, MP2, MP3, WMA, WAV, ADPCM, AMR
• Play video: support AVI format film play achieves QVGA@25f/s fluent MPEG4 video (320 x 240) and provides video bookmark function
• View photos: JPEG, BMP, GIF
• Game simulator: supports FC/GB/GBC/MD 8/16 bit simulator expansion developed by third parties; compatible with NES/GB/GBC/SEGA game ROM
• Read books: supports TXT format
• User-friendly menu with relevant animated instructions
• USB 2.0 port
• OS: Windows 98/98SE/ME/2000/XP/Linux 2.4+/Mac OS 9+

M.S.R.P. $169.00, EM-SOL1GIG

Customers who purchase an eMotion portable media player have immediate access to download free professional photographs and stunning digital art images from http://MyDigitalContent.com for play on any eMotion product. All eMotion consumer electronics offer a limited 90-day warranty.

About Media Street, Inc.
MediaStreet, Inc. is an award-winning manufacturer and developer of innovative consumer electronics and services for the digital music and photography markets. Among the company's unique advances is the marriage of digital content to its digital convergence electronics with the formation of two power web portals; one for professional photography to be enjoyed on eMotion frames, www. http://MyDigitalContent.com, and the other, http://Beyond.fm, to find intriguing music, videos and radio casts which can be played on the growing line of eMotion electronics including (musician) branded eMotion MP3 MP4 PMP DVD and Digital Picture Frame products. MediaStreet is headquartered in Deer Park, New York at 44 W. Jefryn Blvd, Unit Y, 11729. For more information about MediaStreet and their extensive line of products and services, please visit www.mediastreet.com.

Whaddaya expect for $139? Well, it can't be too uncool, because there's a special Public Enemy-branded version due to hit the streets in the Q2 of this year, loaded with the SLAMjamz/Public Enemy catalog of music and videos. But that design? Maybe MediaStreet should stick with me-too digital picture frames. – Charlie White

Press Release [MediaStreet, via LetsGoDigital]