MP3 Odyssey: Part Hana

In 2002, I was fine with listening to music on my Casio Cassiopeia BE-300 PIM; when I wasn't listening to music, I could use the device to play games, surf the web, read ebooks, or, when working, access my contacts and calendar. I was even more delighted playing tunes on my Dell Axim X5 Advanced PocketPC, which did everything the BE did, only more and better.


Of course, as pure music enthusiasts will happily tell you, battery life and storage space on a PocketPC is lacking, compared to a dedicated music player. I'd get bigger and bigger storage cards, as finances permitted, but I still had to significantly decrease the sound quality of my MP3s in order to maintain a decent number of songs alongside my technical documentation and the dozens of apps I'd found useful. The battery life thing might not have been an issue, if my PocketPC had known when to stay off; instead, no matter what I did, it would wake itself up and stay on until the battery was drained, making it rather useless, unless I was extremely vigilant. By the time I'd gotten really comfortable with my TabletPC, vigilance was no longer a reality, and the Axim was left at home. I actually listened to music on my Tablet for a while.

Up until about 7 months ago, I was holding to my iPod defiance attitude. Since I carry around so many gadgets daily, I didn't want a device that only played videos and/or music (and definitely did not want to pay the prices demanded). However, as I was innocently catching up on the latest at Engadget, I was ambushed by an unbidden, unexpected thought: I want an iPod! Reminding myself of the cost involved, I managed to curb the technolust for a couple of months, until it was time to make preparations for a vacation...one on which I was expressly forbidden to take any computers. An appeal to my friends to allow me to take my PocketPC, since I had no dedicated music player, was heard and summarily denied. I had to have something to play with, so I decided to start small and work my way up.

I've gone rather long-winded, and haven't taken my photos, yet, so the story about my 1st true MP3 player will be in my next post.