I’m getting ready to unload the majority of my electronic components for the next phase of the journey over to Africa. It would be silly of me to cycle around with a sack full of hitech gear. One, I’m going to have a problem finding charging in some areas, and two the threat of theft or robbery is huge. Buying these off of me will help me achieve my goal of riding my bicycle around the world – I’m sure if you looked on a used site you might be able to find one of these for cheaper – but hey its for a good cause! Contact me for information – We can work out shipping and payment details. There will be more to come in the next few months.
MP3 Player – This plastic device known as the Sansa E280 crams 8GB of flash based storage into a half-candy bar sized unit also containing an FM radio, a voicerecorder, jog wheel for easy accessing your media, and a small screen – which apparently can be used to view photos and videos – although there are much better devices suited for that purpose. It has the capability of mounting on your computer as a regular hard disk, not requiring you to get sucked into using proprietary programs such as Microsoft Windows Media Player, or that bloated excuse for a media player known as Apple ITunes. Out of the box, it functions alright as a media player, but lacks certain features and oomph for the person who wants to get the most out of their unit. Luckily, some enterprising hackers created a 3rd party firmware for the unit known as Rockbox, which allows the user to have much more granular control on how the unit operates. Features such as controlling speed of playback, gap-less playback between songs, a full graphic equalizer, compressor/limiter functions, and reading from the file system are features that are regularly used. They’ve also made this firmware work on a dozen other devices, which may be worth your while if you have a device that needs a little refresh. Battery life is about 15 hours on this puny unit, which charges in a few hours with its included cable. Only downside to this unit is the proprietary data exchange cable, it would be nice if it had a more universal Mini USB port. Thumbs up to the unit for making it two two wash cycles, one dryer cycle, a few sandy beaches, and numerous falls from 4ft or higher and still functioning as good as new, 3 years later.
Price: $40
Nintendo DS Lite – Dual Screens with one of them acting as a touch screen, this little unit allows you to get your game on in a very tiny package. Good battery life, and an impressive list of titles that not only allow you to save the princess, but work on strengthening your reflexes, brain, and even teach you new languages with its integrated microphone. This comes with an R4 Cartridge and a 2Gb memory card to do whatever you’d like with the unit.
$100
Canon G9 Camera. It was Canon’s highest end Point and Shoot offering a few years back, has the ability to add wide and zoom lenses onto it, and can handle 2ft falls onto concrete readily with its all metal body. It’s heavy, takes a rechargeable proprietary battery that lasts a good 300 shots, and offers a very detailed set of options for modifying exposure, shutter, and colour saturation. It also does a half decent job of recording video, although in a format that takes a considerable amount of removable disk storage space. Comes with a 2GB SD Card and a case.
$180
Zoom Q3 Video Audio Recorder - The newly released Zoom Q3 Video recorder packs acceptable video features into its plastic chassis housing, and a whole lot of audio options with its professional capsule microphones that are used on its flagship product the Zoom H4. Battery life is about what you’d expect on a device like this, 4 hours on a pair of ‘AA’ alkaline batteries with video mode on, and up to 7 with audio only. It offers composite video out as opposed to newer HDMI offerings, and lacks a line in for recordings from other devices. It does however record in a QuickTime .MOV format that keeps the 640×480 resolution file sizes manageable. You get minimal options with lighting and only a digital zoom, so it’s certainly suited for specific applications, like recording gigs, practices, and amateur video recording. Comes with a 2GB SD Card. All of the videos on this site were recorded with this unit.
$180
Battery Pack #1 – This portable battery pack has 2000maH of reserve power, two output USB ports for charging your components, such as a GPS, IPhone, cellular, or whatever you want to throw at it. It’s small and compact and takes about an hour to fully charge. It’s been handy for me, but I have far too many batteries at this time. This is a Duracell Powerhouse USB Charger – There’s a 3 year warranty on it if the battery inside ever dies. Used since May maybe about a dozen times.
$45
Battery Pack #2 – This portable battery pack has 4200maH of reserve power, two output USB ports for charging your components, such as a GPS, IPhone, cellular, or whatever you want to throw at it. It’s small and compact and takes about an hour to fully charge. It’s been handy for me, but I have far too many batteries at this time. This one doesn’t really have a name. I’ve never used it, other to charge it once and it comes with an AC Adapter to plug into a wall to charge, or you can use its included USB cable.
$55
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