Buying an MP3 Player in 2018

The FiiO M3K FLAC-compatible player looks promising, https://accessibleaudio.co/2018/12/27/fiio-m3k-review-a-pock.... There's a partial native port of Rockbox firmware for the M3K, which improves on the stock playback UX, but is missing other functionality.

Firmware: https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/FiioM3K & https://fluxcoil.net/wiki/hardwarerelated/mp3player/fiio_m3k

M3K native port source: https://github.com/Rockbox/rockbox/commits?author=amachronic

Anyone have suggestions for an iPod Shuffle-like player that isn't ridiculously expensive? No screen, just some simple hardware buttons that plays loaded music. That doesn't feel cheap or like it has malware preloaded on it? Should be simple, right? Right? (No, says my shopping experience...)

I don't think I've ever had a more satisfying music listening experience than my original iPod Shuffle, the white stick one which plugged in directly as a USB drive. The simplicity of the switch on the back that toggled between shuffle and non-shuffled modes was perfect. I could load up around 300 of my favorite songs (which, as a high schooler in the heady days of Kazaa and ilk, was about all I possessed), know exactly what I was going to get, and could play hunt-and-seek by toggling between my known playlist order and shuffle. And that was it! No screen getting constant notifications, no navigating through ever-changing hierarchies (looking at you, Music on iOS app), and I didn't even need to be OCD about album art at that point.

Ah, the glory days... :)

What I miss most about my now defunct ipods is the clic wheel, even to this day that's really something I would consider buying such a single purpose hardware device just for.

I still use my 6th gen ipod nano basically every day. They are more expensive refurbished now than a new one cost at launch. It's practically weightless, clips on to the collar of my shirt, and has an okay UI. It also syncs with iTunes, which none of these other ones would do, which is essential for podcasts and loading new music. Only thing that would make it better are more hardware buttons for pause, UI could be improved a bit, and bluetooth would be cool.

Personally my daily driver is a Victure M3 [1]. My version is an older model, but is still really quite nice. It's been through the wash three times and run over by a car - other than some small screen damage it's still good.

The audio quality is pretty reasonable and it'll happily play MP3, WAV, FLAC, etc. The battery whilst on wire is amazing, whilst on Bluetooth you'll get about a day.

As the article suggests, one of the reasons to use this over a phone is to save battery life. You also get a completely dedicated device encase you are charging your phone and want to go for a walk, or are exercising and only want to carry minimal equipment.

[1] https://www.govicture.com/m3

In a previous life I worked in secured government spaces where personal devices weren't allowed at all, full stop, and the internet was also restricted to prevent access to most web streaming services.

If I wanted to listen to music while coding, I found a workaround by owning a Shuffle and getting approval for it. The Shuffle doesn't have a USB port and doesn't connect to WiFi or Bluetooth, so it met all the criteria for an exemption.

It's weird having lived in such a strict cross-section of users to need these specific criteria met. Even the OP lists several options that all would fail to meet these restrictions.

I went down the rabbit hole of portable media players, even going so far as to write software to sync my Plex music library with an iPod. Unfortunately, shortly after that Spotify launched for Teslas in the US, so I switched to that full-time. I do still wish there was a small wifi and bluetooth enabled dedicated Spotify player in the vein of the square iPod nano. Ideally something that connected to my phone when available, and fell back to on-board storage when a data connection wasn't available.

Still it's possible to buy a Sony Walkman NWZ, mine has more than 10 years. Never found anything so portable.

I like that people uses the term MP3 [1] player to mean Music player when most of their music are AAC.

I suppose Apple Watch or some other Wrist Band like are sort of a replacement if you are looking for smaller portable music player that is not a bulky phone?

[1] Now MP3 is patent free, even AAC-LC is patent free. How time flies.

What are the good AAA or AA battery options?

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