I have an old iPod shuffle. No screen, works as a USB stick, just plug it in, put some songs on, and it works.

Hah, just took my 2006 sansa e280 (similar device to yours, similar decade on the sideline) away with me on a trip.

I didn't want to be contactable but was hiking so wanted to listen to music. Loved connecting back with my old music too

I got this for my girlfriend. If I recall it held about 100 CDs worth of music—it had a small hard drive in it. Up until that point she had used a portable CD player in her car. I remember it being a little finicky, but ultimately working well.

Still have a sandisk clip sport. When it dies I'm gonna search for something alike..... Sooooo much better than a phone and a app

Back in the day, I had one that looked like this and was essentially built around an AA battery, which was great since you could always carry a spare.

I miss Creative. Best computer speakers I ever had. Also when everyone at school was rocking a 4gb iPod they got at the mall for hundreds of dollars and had to choose which music they wanted, I was rocking this puppy for like $100 off of eBay with my entire library on it. Notice it's 30gb! It also doubled as a portable hard drive. This is back when corporations did everything they could to make a good product. Not too sure, given the quality difference, why apple thrived and companies like creative died.

+1 on dedicated music players. I can listen to music for hours without worrying that my phone is gonna die.

+1 000 000 on A Lifetime Of Adventure. Fantastic song.

It's how small things can be when they don't need a screen

I think people are forgetting you can still buy players like this. -With a mini jack, lots of space, drag and drop to transfer music....

https://amazon.de/dp/B0CJFRSGKH

reformatting that thing is a massive pain without windows

Enshitification has been a long slow burn, boiling the frog so we don't notice.

My Creative mp3 fit in my pocket and had a joystick to control the music through my jeans. No voice commands, no touch screen, no touching my headphones, just sitting on the bus and fast forwarding or skipping as I desired.

I started using something similar recently. I started buying music on indie sites and I have a closer relationship with my music. I keep listening to the same things since my library is still small. Because of that I remember the lyrics, know the names of favorite tracks or hum the songs during the day.

With phones not having the 3.5mm jack these days it sort of makes sense to have a separate 3.5mm jack device even.

The one I got is a Fiio Snowsky Echo Mini (2025) that is similarly old school - no Wi-Fi, just USB file transfer upload. Listening to music on a smartphone is mentally draining in comparison.

The player Is not such a good deal as it was before the Fiio tariff-related price hike, when it was around 40€, but eh. The battery is soldered on despite the case having a "stylistic" battery cover on the case. Supposedly on the inside it's still a standardized battery cell, so if you unscrew the case it should still be serviceable.

There are MP3 players which are simple and Digital Audio Players (DAPs) which are supposed to be more hi-fi. In Europe, AGPTEK is available (can't vouch, but see A52PL, C2S, U5PL) too. In the US, a simple modern iPod clone seems to be the Innioasis Y1. SanDisk (Western Digital) seems to have stopped making their Clip line and they're hard to find used where I'm from.

There's also a custom firmware for some DAPs/MP3 players called rockbox, here's the supported device list https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/TargetStatus

Still have my 120G Zune and 16G Zune HD, both of which still work flawlessly. It's wild to think what we left behind

i was explaining to a college student about mp3 players and they thought they sounded like some amazing new product coming down the pipeline. it made me feel super old and super sad for all that tech companies have robbed from us

Sony phones have headphones jacks.

I had one of these. Used it for running until it stopped holding charge. Perfect size and weight, and you could drag and drop mp3s without any hassle.

Dankpods is that you

You can still get things like this, for example my running setup is the Shanling M0 mp3 player (which is barely larger than that Zen Stone) and pair of Moondrop Chuu II IEMs, total cost about £120

Have the same in black, doesn't even need any special software to load songs on it, unlike some other creative products.

if a psp is easy enough to come by in your local pawn shop, they make for good mp3 players

Aw man I wish I still had my old mp3 players. I had a round Sony one that was awesome, I could navigate songs/albums in my pocket without looking at the screen.