A good reason not to buy cheap knockoffs…

A Chinese outfit called ePathChina.com announced today the availability of a new 2GB personal media player supporting a slew of standard audio and video formats.  With its 1.8″ screen, FM radio, and E-book functionality, the device doesn’t stand out in the crowd of other mp3 players, such as the IPod Touch, in terms of features. What I do like about the player, and only because it made me laugh, is the fact that to navigate to the next song or video, you shake the device.  Initially this may seem like a novel idea, but after about 2 seconds of careful thought, I realized what a nuicense this would be when using the device in any of the environments I’d typically need it.  Can you imagine trying to listen to music while running on a treadmill and having each step advance the player to the next song.  At that rate, I’d go through my entire 2000 song collection in about 4 minutes!  But with a price tag under $40, I guess this is another example of getting what you pay for ...