The One MP3 Player

I am sometimes mocked for my technological preferences, namely the companies I choose to purchase various technology from.

While price and performance are primary considerations, there are times when similar products warrant an illogical deciding factor to dictate where cash should be splashed.

In this case, I'm referring to manufacturers.

A few people have a disproportionately advertised (we often hear of how good they are, despite low uptake in several key markets) love of Apple, and the inferior and overpriced products they peddle to ill-informed customers.  Unfortunately, Apple customers are the most vocal, so the fact that half of their ipods explode within six months due to faulty batteries, or they cease functioning for no apparent reason after two years, forcing the owners to purchase the latest model, rarely gets many technology column inches.

The reason I bring this up right now?  My own dad has been through dozens of Iphones, Ipods, I-these and those, through misuse and abuse, and through no fault of his own.  Yet I have recently dropped an MP3 player in a rain soaked road, where it was literally being washed away by the torrents - as cars and lorries were barreling overhead, and upon picking it up, water gushed forth as if it were a minuscule watering can.

An Apple product would have given up many years ago, owing to battery malfunction or outmoded interfaces.  My plucky little Sony Walkman Personal Media Player (/end plug) carried on trucking though, through thirty foot falls and weather that forced its' owner off, before it decided to quit, and now this devastating blow that would destroy all but the most hardy little media devices.

This little guy still works, still holds the five years of pictures I've taken, and still wants to eschew the sounds that beat all others.

I salute you, little media player; for you are a fantastically built, superbly crafted, one in a million device.