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Some time last year, probably around christmas, I was looking for a new mp3 player. I had been using my mobile phone up to that point, but it wasn’t really supplying me with that I wanted. In addition, taking a mobile phone out on long trips and harder enviroments isn’t the brightest of ideas. Neither is carrying an mp3 player, but some music really lightens one’s mood when “the going gets tough“. After all, I was in the army at the time.

Apparently, I thought I had too much money when I went shopping for a player. As you might’ve guessed, I wound up with Samsung’s YP-T9 model, the version with 2 GB, which is fairly expensive. When I bought it the price was around 1000 NOK, about 125€ with todays currency. To my defense, the player had close to brilliant specifications;

• Bluetooth
• FM Radio
• Played MPEG4
• Supported MP3, WMA, OGG
• Only 49 grams of weight

Among other features. In addition, it claimed to be able to play for 30 hours without recharging. I haven’t done any serious testing on this, but I’m willing to vouch for it not being far from the truth. With all of these positive features, one would think the T9 and me would be a match made in heaven.

Wrong! I hated it. So much. It would hang constantly, and particurlarly in the least convenient situations, for instance when you have a three hour bus ride to tackle. A typical scenario would be the player leading me on, fooling me to think this would be a painless trip where I could just stare out the window with some lovely tunes by The Hellacopters in my ears, and suddenly just cut all cords and flood my head with a loud “DRRRRRRDRRRRR” sound. I really have no idea how to describe it. It was horrible, absolute pain. What this basically meant was that Samsung’s tiny model flagship was useless for a good 24 hours, untill it had no “DRRRRR” left because of a flat battery. I badly wanted a new one, but I couldn’t afford another because of the price on the T9. I was at the boiling point constantly when using it, and when the wire to my headset would get tied up everywhere I’d go, even though the player had nothing to do with it, it was like pooring petrol on an already well burning fire.

Then came the 10 days that would be the start of a new and improved relationship between us. My troop, together with several other divisions of the Norwegian army, were going on a 10 day military exercise in northern Norway. It would mean snow everywhere, -20 to -30 degrees Celsius all the time and not much sleep. I wasn’t looking forward to it. Naturally I brought the T9 with me. I won’t elaborate what we did on this trip, but I’ll say it wasn’t anything like I had imagined, mainly because I have never slept so much in my entire life, or been so cold, but also because the player didn’t hang once. I had music the whole exercise. Our relationship had been rejoiced, and I was a happy owner again. A couple of crashes through the rest of my military career tried our arrangement some, but after the latest firmware update, the 1.80, it has been rock solid.

Then I was caught in a few days of grief. I was on my way into Oslo for my last week of work when I couldn’t find the T9 anywhere. I remembered having carried it in a pair of pants, now set for washing. I feared the worst. At the end of the week, my suspicion was confirmed. I had sponsored a free trip around a hoola-hoop carusell called a washing machine for my player. Desperatly I tried booting it, but to no avail. For a couple of days it laid there, and everytime I went past I was reminded of my doing. Then as a last resort I remembered a similar situation from an earlier event in my life, meaning I’ve nearly destroyed electronic devices with with water before. If you must know, I lost my previous mobile phone in the toilet when drunk, while talking on it, as I was peeing. Now it only works if I plug it to a charger, making it less mobile and just a phone I’ve urined on, rather than a mobile phone I’ve urined on.

So I remembered how vivid this previous device became when I charged it some, and figured I would try the same trick now. To my surprise and joy, it worked (also when not charging)! It’s as good as new, and in addition it smells of fresh summer and clean clothes.

So here’s an updated feature list of the “Too tough to die YP-T9″ MP3 player:

• Bluetooth
• FM Radio
• Plays MPEG4
• Support for MP3, WMA, OGG
• Only 49 grams of weight
• 30 hours of playback
• Survives 6 months of military abuse
• Capable of operation after visiting temperatures as low as -30 degrees Celsius
• Has no problem tackling a couple of rounds in a washing machine