Want to buy an Walkman . wait, what do they call them nowadays?

One of those portable music-playing devices with the ear buds. I am looking for cheap, reliable and simplistic. I don't need it to monitor my blood pressure, take photos of cheques I want to deposit, or snipe auctions on e-Bay. I just want it to play music.

What's a good one to get?

http://store.apple.com/us/buy-ipod/ipod-shuffle

2GB of storage, $49.

A smart phone [emoji1]

Your smart phone plays music.

I found an old cassette Walkman/radio in the neighborhood on trash day. I showed it to my 3 yr old girl and told her it played music. She tried to use it as a phone.

Boombox.

ouch said:

Boombox.

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I need to let my hair grow out, first.

SilentTuba said:

http://store.apple.com/us/buy-ipod/ipod-shuffle

2GB of storage, $49.

Click to expand...

+1

I have an old 1GB, the battery holds enough charge to give me one play of each song and then on recharge it gets reloaded from a Smart Playlist of Zero plays so it's a very long time before a song will get repeated, always something fresh in the pipeline. Well over a year to go through the complete library but now it's time to reset the playcounts to zero and start over.

Doc4 said:

I need to let my hair grow out, first.

Click to expand...

Probably wouldn't hurt to bin that man purse too

I would suggest going with a smartphone if you do not already have one. They really are worth it. If you do not want to go that route, the iPod is still a solid bet. The $149 16GB iPod Nano will hold more than enough music for most people.

Funny!

thematthatter said:

Your smart phone plays music.

I found an old cassette Walkman/radio in the neighborhood on trash day. I showed it to my 3 yr old girl and told her it played music. She tried to use it as a phone.

Click to expand...

A lot of places sell used ipods/mp3 players. May be able to pick up a good deal at some of the 2nd hand electronics stores (I think a lot of them sell used video games and stuff mostly).

I've got an old 8GB iPod Nano which I like. I probably have 60 hours of music on it taking up 5GB of space. The only thing I don't like so much is using iTunes to load it.

OK, I'll just get it out of the way and say I don't care for Apple products. I have owned a few and this isn't just a fanboy opinion or anything. I don't think you should get an iPod.

If you want a simple digital music player just get the SanDisc Sansa Clip+ 8GB for $50 on Amazon. It also has a MicroSD card slot for up to 32GB more music storage space...or audiobooks. It also has an FM tuner. The battery lasts forever. It supports a good variety of audio formats. You don't need to run iTunes or any other proprietary software; I just drag and drop music files from folder to folder in Windows. It weighs less than an ounce. I ran mine through the washing machine and after drying it worked again. Mine's going on strong for 5 years now. If you lose it or break it you aren't out a ton of money, either.

This thing is inexpensive (not to be confused with cheap as this is a really quality item), reliable and simplistic. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

I'm an Android user. My Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone does a fine job with music. It holds all the songs I need, the audio is excellent. I generally run a cable from the Samsung's headphone out-jack to the input on my car stereo. I do the most music-listening while I'm driving. In the house, I listen to those same songs on my PC.

While you pick out the hardware, take a good look at your software and content source as well, to make sure they are compatible. I use Amazon Music App to play the music, since most of my songs came from there. I have several other music apps installed, and they work with Amazon MP3s also. But I stick with the Amazon app because its familiar and easy to operate.

You can run a program like iTunes on a Windows PC or an Android. But you shouldn't. It might work, but its wrong on so many levels. Keep your software choice on its native hardware.

And shop carefully for your headphones or earbuds or whatever you choose to produce the actual audio. Don't scrimp on this. A good pair of ear buds is going to make a world of difference in your rig's performance, and the good ones don't come cheap. Don't spend $200 on a player and pair it up with $2.00 earbuds. You may need to go through several pairs before you find the perfect fit. If you'll be wearing them for extended periods, comfort is just as important as audio quality.

Sony makes Walkman MP3 players now. I have one, it's a few years old now and still going strong

I still have some tape cassette playing walk men.


so if you really want one...
But any m-p3 player will do. but get Quality headphones.

esswun said:

OK, I'll just get it out of the way and say I don't care for Apple products. I have owned a few and this isn't just a fanboy opinion or anything. I don't think you should get an iPod.

If you want a simple digital music player just get the SanDisc Sansa Clip+ 8GB for $50 on Amazon. It also has a MicroSD card slot for up to 32GB more music storage space...or audiobooks. It also has an FM tuner. The battery lasts forever. It supports a good variety of audio formats. You don't need to run iTunes or any other proprietary software; I just drag and drop music files from folder to folder in Windows. It weighs less than an ounce. I ran mine through the washing machine and after drying it worked again. Mine's going on strong for 5 years now. If you lose it or break it you aren't out a ton of money, either.

This thing is inexpensive (not to be confused with cheap as this is a really quality item), reliable and simplistic. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Click to expand...

At the risk of being a typical forum poster; Plus a whole bunch. I bought two of these for my girls years ago. On sale at Christmas for next to nothing. Probably the best value in a music player around. Ours were a bit older and were not the + models but the function was very similar. I like the rocker dial on this one better. It would be my choice.

Edit: When you get to Amazon's web site you will find a listing directly below this one in small photo link. It says something about a new model. Just skip it. I looked at the new model and it is a good bit less money but they got rid of the AMOLED screen, it is now LARGER than the older one, it is colour which is completely unnecessary on a player like this, and it lacks the superb simplicity of the older model.

A portable FLAC player it is

Pono, for instance: http://www.gizmag.com/ponomusic-digital-high-res-audio/31176/
Thoough this does not get rave reviews everywhere: http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2014/03/12/ponoworst

FiiO seems a more audiophile option:

I have 4 ipods (3 touchs and my original 30G brick). I tend to use the 1st gen touch the most. I also have quite a bit of music on an SD card for my Kyocera Brigadier phone. My wife gave me a pair of Sony over the ear digital headphones for Christmas and I have a couple of sets of Skull Candy ear buds as well. The Sony headphones produce the best sound. I use Rocket Player for the phone as a player and I like the equalizer.

So, let's break it down....

- What format is your music in?
- Where is it stored?
- Do you have any similar devices you could use (even old flip phones often had media players on them, if you're not a smartphone guy)
- How much music do you want to have available? Are you willing to sync some music over every day, or do you want the entire collection available at all times?
- How snooty are you about audio quality?
- How big or small a player do you want? aka, how will you carry it - in a bag, or do you need pocket size or smaller?
- Budget?
- use cases - does it need to stand up to long runs or gym workouts? Or just walking around with?