In my second year of high school I got 500 yuan of New Year’s money, and I wanted to spend it on something. While poking around TomPDA I came across a Sony Walkman E505. Seller said it was an OEM pack, bare unit, just over 500. 50 hours of battery life, and it looked good enough. So I bought it without a second thought. To be honest, at first I didn’t care much about the specs or the sound quality. I just thought it looked nice, and that 50-hour claim was tempting. I had an iPAQ Hx2410 at the time, but its battery life was a tragic 5 hours. This was 50 hours. Even with 320Kbps MP3s stuffed in it I could still get 20 hours. That meant I basically never had to think about the battery. One charge and I could mess around with it for a week. High school was miserable every day, so getting to listen to more music was heaven. To use a phrase people use now, it was a “massive happiness upgrade” kind of gadget.