Stand alone MP3 Players. Are they today's VCR?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Stand alone MP3 Players. Are they today's VCR?

BeastOfExmoor: Aug 19, 2003; I will be gone, but not forever.

I carried around a 160GB iPod Classic for years before finally selling it (for over $200, holy poo poo) and replaced it with a cheap, but highly functional, prepaid Android phone with a bad ESN off ebay and a 128GB microSD card. For under $150 have a device that can play music, but also can be used on Wi-Fi to watch movies, etc. I use an app called iSyncr so all my info from iTunes (ratings, playlists) syncs up well.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2015 19:19

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 12:07

BeastOfExmoor: Aug 19, 2003; I will be gone, but not forever.

rt4 posted:

Amazon currently has their low-end Fire tablet on sale for $50. It includes a micro SD slot and Bluetooth, which qualifies it as the cheapest Bluetooth MP3 player available. Exactly what I've been looking for.

For an MP3 player a prepaid Android phone is probably a better (and likely cheaper) choice since it's portable. Verizon Moto E's sold for $9.99 on Black Friday and there are a ton of them on eBay/Amazon for $30 or so. Much more portable.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2015 19:00

BeastOfExmoor: Aug 19, 2003; I will be gone, but not forever.

SubjectVerbObject posted:

Man this sucks. I just started looking for a cheap Mp3 player because I want to listen to some class recordings in the car. From the look of things there's nothing cheap that doesn't have huge interface/organizational issues, which would make it hard to organize class files. I would almost take a chance on something really cheap on Amazon, but all of the random no name players have 4 star + reviews by people who got a free player "in exchange for an honest review." Yeah right.

Any suggestions that don't involve a phone or Apple?

Why not a phone? Verizon prepaid Moto E's go for $30 on Amazon (because a bunch of people bought them for $9.99 on black friday and are reselling for a profit) and will do what you want much, much better than anything you could find for a similar price. Not to mention an audio book player will probably work better for listening to classes than a straight MP3 player since it will allow you to listen at different speeds, save your place, etc.

mediaphage posted:

What's wrong with Apple? Just buy an used shuffle or nano on Craigslist; you won't find anything better for something approaching the price.

Shuffle is a bad choice for someone who wants to listen to long lectures, presumably in a specific order.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2016 02:22

BeastOfExmoor: Aug 19, 2003; I will be gone, but not forever.

SubjectVerbObject posted:

The phone idea sounds interesting. You would not activate it but just connect to Wifi, yes? So in effect it is a small cheap tablet?

No Apple because my wife has a Nano and I spend way too much time trying to figure out how each new Itunes release messes her stuff up. I'm really just looking for something I can drag files onto.

Yep. You basically throw it into airplane mode, turn Wi-Fi back on, and you have the equivalent of an iPod touch or small tablet.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2016 07:52

BeastOfExmoor: Aug 19, 2003; I will be gone, but not forever.

WithoutTheFezOn posted:

E4 seems kind of overkill for the purpose.

The nice thing about using an Android device as a media player only is that you can buy one of the subsidized prepaid devices. Walmart is selling the Verizon Prepaid E4 for $40. Unfortunately it's currently out of stock in most stores and online. Apparently you can actually unlock this phone and use it with most GSM providers with a $2 code from eBay, which is really unusual for prepaid phones.

There may also be some cheap prepaid phones with better DAC's out there, but I haven't researched this in a while.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2017 16:36

BeastOfExmoor: Aug 19, 2003; I will be gone, but not forever.

This image basically is the summation of everything I would expect from someone reviewing high end audio players.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2017 21:44

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 12:07

BeastOfExmoor: Aug 19, 2003; I will be gone, but not forever.

ExecuDork posted:

There certainly are devices on the new market that meet your specifications, but they're mostly massively overbuilt for the lunatic audiophiles who also buy gold-plated Monster cables and hang magic rocks off of them (i.e. delusional idiots).

There are also good-enough players out there that have some actually nice and useful features but again, they tend to be a bit pricey.

And there are warehouses full of new-old-stock, MP3-players from 10 years ago still in their original packaging. This is where I've found there's a tradeoff - greater than 32GB (either internal or micro-SD) / rugged enough to actually use / priced less than a new phone - pick 2.

And then, at the bottom end, we have the endless variety of knock-offs filling up Amazon and other sellers. I've had a few AGPTEK players, an older Amazon brand, and they have been cheap and disappointing.

So, yes, the answer is almost certainly "a phone with no SIM card". Newer MP3 players have converged on devices that look like phones and are built around a touchscreen that covers one entire side so it's possible that whatever you don't like about using a phone for music is also going to be present in a stand-alone MP3 player. Sorry.

I suggest you use the advanced search function on https://www.gsmarena.com/ to find some older phones that have headphone jacks and are available where you are on the second-hand market. If you specify an older OS (Android: older than 12; Apple I don't know) and/or a release date range that ends a few years ago, you should find some reasonable options that you can look for on eBay or locally. Any phone (again, I'm not familiar with Apple) from the past decade should have the capacity to take a micro-SD card, which raises the storage space to some large multiple of what you have now. But the headphone jack and the USB-charging port are both weak points on phones, so if you go used try to find some assurance that these ports are in good shape.

EDIT: what's your definition of "expensive"? I might be suggesting entirely things that are way more expensive than you're currently considering, but there are other routes down at the cheapest cheap cheapness end of things.

It's a little bit counter to the thread, but since you mentioned phones specifically for music listening I thought I'd mention that, at least in the US, it's trivially easy to get a phone that will do just that for shockingly cheap. MetroPCS will give you a Moto G Power for free with one month ($65) of service. Just activate the SIM, cancel the service, and you have a device that will work just fine on Wi-Fi and has both MicroSD and a headphone jack. The form factor is kind of lovely for playing music, but battery life with wireless antennas turned off should be excellent.

I'm amazed that people are still using iPod Classic's. I had one for many years, but I don't miss the UI at all. Touchscreens have their downsides, but being able search for artists, songs, etc. was a true game changer for me.

BeastOfExmoor fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Mar 14, 2024

# ¿ Mar 14, 2024 05:39

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Stand alone MP3 Players. Are they today's VCR?