Since people have become a lot more eco-conscious over the past couple of years, solar-powered devices are very trendy nowadays, and we see more and more such products arriving on the market, from backpacks to... MP3 players. And that's exactly the case with the SunBeat MP3 player presented by Italian company Kiwie, a device that has been equipped with a solar panel for recharging its battery even while the user's on the go.

As far as its design is concerned, the SunBeat is a pretty simple portable MP3 player, featuring am easy-to-use control interface. Hence, all the users have to do to start this thing up is connect the headphones, and in order to change the tunes or adjust the volume, they'll have to press its corners.

Now, leaving aside the design and the eco-friendly power source, let's take a look at the specs the SunBeat can provide. Hence, the device supports the MP3, WMA and U-DISK music formats, the respective files being stored within the player's 2GB of built-in flash memory. The device connects to the host computer via a USB 2.0 interface, which allows users to transfer files at speeds of up to 480 Mbps.

Furthermore, the USB port is used a secondary power source for the device's battery, when there's no Sun. When connected to a PC, the SubBeat behaves just like any removable USB flash drive (it has a FAT 16/32 file system), and works quite well with pretty much any type of Windows operating system out there (98, ME, 2000, XP and Vista). Sadly, there's no word on either Mac or Linux compatibility.

Despite being equipped with a solar panel, the SunBeat is actually pretty slim and lightweight, as it measures just around 40.3 x 40.3 x10mm, at a weight of roughly 32 grams. The headphones are quite OK from the point of view of audio quality, or at least that's what the manufacturer claims.

Unfortunately, Kiwie has not provided any pricing or availability details for the time being, but we sure hope that this thing will arrive on the market sooner rather than later, and, most importantly, at an affordable price point.


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