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Comment by Aurornis | Hacker News Reader

> You cannot buy a dedicated MP3 player today with the software polish and quality of life that an iPod had in the early 2000s

I could see how many people would assume this, but it’s actually false.

There’s actually a big selection of dedicated audio players that do the job very well now. The battery life and audio quality are extremely good because there’s a niche market for them with a lot of competition.

If you think the iPod software experience in the early 2000s was good then you and I had very different experiences with iTunes during that time.

The resurgence of retro gear has a simpler explanation: Retro is cool. Vintage is cool. Has been for a long time. The reason we’re noticing it now is because the tech things we remember are finally passing that threshold where they go from being outdated to being retro. Just like clothes and styles that went out of fashion but are now retro-cool.

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I looked pretty hard - I specifically don’t want an android OS called an mp3 player. I want a dedicated media player that has physical button controls (not touch screen), is very snappy, has a good UI, and has a purpose-built OS specific to only playing songs and podcasts, and maybe movies, which I can sync with my computer (maybe with rsync or whatever else). No apps.

The only option that I could find was an iPod classic, modded with an SD card and better battery.

If something else exists, especially brand new, I’d love to know! But I couldn’t find hardly anything that wasn’t just an Android phone with no cell service.

This is a problem with "single-purpose" devices for kids, too. Drawing tablets, music players. They're all actually full Android phones (sans cell modem) and tablets. It sucks.

Why is android bad here? An android launcher can create the illusion of a single purpose device. What difference does it make? Battery life?

They can do too much stuff, so it’s yet another do-anything device to have to police.

So install a dumbed down launcher and put it in kiosk mode? Thatll lock things down pretty heavily.

That's exactly the policing.

It represents a general purpose computer on your network which will accumulate vulnerabilities and never be patched or otherwise secured, making it a persistent insider threat as a launchpad for attacks on your network

The issue isn't really Android, it's the touchscreen and the way the UX is a regression from many analog single-purpose devices.

If you gonna have a single-purpose device - make it analog (or close to analog)!

Don't give it a perceptible boot-time and all the other flaws that come with general-purpose computing. Don't make the user have to "wake up the device", let alone have to visually confirm that it is woken-up, before they can switch to the next song.

Not sure why you want to have purpose-built OS as the hill to die on since many of those Android-based mp3 players absolutely outclass the old iPod classics in snappiness and compatibility and output quality.

Plenty of choices that meet your other criteria once you're OK with it being Android powered.

Like a SnowSky is very obviously stripped down Android that can only run the music app it's shipped with, but it's otherwise everything you want.

Only speaking for myself, but the problem with Android is that it and the hardware needed to make it run acceptably are absurd overkill for the use case, which drives up cost, cuts down on battery life, and adds a layer of unnecessary complexity (suddenly you need to think about what player app to use, for example).

Basically part of the charm of a single-purpose device is that it can be built to serve it purpose ridiculously well and do nothing else, and the second general purpose software enters the picture much of that is lost.

The endless amount of Chinese Android-based single purpose mp3 player devices that are obviously iPod Nano/Classic clones basically cost ~$30 and have 50hr+ of battery life. You don't have to think about what player app to use, they ship with the only one that runs. The rest of the Androidness is stripped out.

Then yes, there's obviously the other end of the extreme where the mp3 player is very obviously a phone without a radio with a price tag to match. And everything in-between.

I'd say there's actually too many choices cause the silicon and battery cost required to simply play music has gotten so cheap that it doesn't make sense to optimize the OS further than Android. I'm sure the economics of scale means the actual hardware wouldn't be cheaper by any noticeable amount either.

> Only speaking for myself, but the problem with Android is that it and the hardware needed to make it run acceptably are absurd overkill for the use case, which drives up cost, cuts down on battery life, and adds a layer of unnecessary complexity (suddenly you need to think about what player app to use, for example).

The battery life is fine on modern DAPs. Excellent, even.

I understand why an engineer would want a completely application specific, built-from-scratch OS that does one thing perfectly, but that's a pipe dream for a niche market.

A powerful and efficient SoC that runs Android is ultra-cheap these days. Less than $1. Hiring an engineering team to write and maintain a custom OS for a niche product would incur so much R&D cost that it would wipe out any money you'd save by using a smaller microcontroller and drive the final cost up.

Just think: How much salary would you have to pay a team of engineers to write the custom OS and maintain it? If you could optimistically sell 500,000 of these devices (good luck) then how much would you have to save in order to pay for the R&D?

You don't need "OS" to play some music, drive display and talk via USB/BLE. It's trivial task and could be done with a few event loops. A lot of firmwares is being written without OS. May be FreeRTOS/Zephyr to somewhat simplify the programming, but that's definitely not "OS" in a commonly accepted sense. You don't need team of engineers, one hobbyist could easily do that. I wrote firmware for a device of similar complexity (work with ADC, implements USB, BLE, some UI with buttons and leds) and I'm not even a professional.

There's no way to win in these threads. It's a very common pattern on HN that somebody will say, "X doesn't exist!" And then people will proceed to point out that in fact does exist. And then you'll find out that the original poster has a bunch of non-functional requirements that were baked into their original request that they didn't state, and I usually don't agree with (typically because they are either not practical or only of theoretical concern). They'll typically defend them using highly charged language, like claiming that having to carry a 200 gram device will pull their pants down because it's so heavy, or that managing a Bluetooth stack and USB doesn't require an OS, but rather just a couple of event loops that a non-professional could code directly in firmware.

I've simply stopped participating because in my efforts to try to help people, I find that I just get into silly arguments.

Yes, I want these for my kids so very badly. They have Yotos (similar to Tonie) for bedtime, and iPads for school work, but those are not ideal for a number of reasons. I want them to be able to experience music like I was able to with an FM+cassette walkman clone in the '80s and early '90s, or with my Nomads and iPods in the late '90s and early aughts. Hopefully someone here can suggest something!

ETA: OK, there are quite a few highly-rated options on Amazon, so I just need to solve the "putting music on there" problem and the "dropping it and immediately destroying it problem".

We have a couple of https://bemighty.com which work great for the kiddos. Effectively an ipod shuffle.

Same Works great.

The whole Spotify 30 day refresh requirement is bullshit but there’s really nothing that isn’t without some flaw

I can't vouch for it personally since I don't own one, but I saw a video on YouTube mentioning the Innioasis Y1[0], which supposedly does a decent job of replicating the iPod experience with some modern features like USB-C and Bluetooth at a decent price. Can be flashed with RockBox. No external SD slot, but it can be opened to swap out the SD card it comes with. Reportedly doesn't feel nearly as nice in hand as a real iPod does but that's pretty standard at this price point.

[0]: https://www.innioasis.com/products/y1

Damn this looks great. I'd guess the main difference in feel is the weight. iPod classic was about 2-3x heavier, which seems to be the main factor in premium feel.

(Well, that and the metal body.)

Bought off your recommendation for my kids to replace their Yotos [1], thank you!

[1] https://us.yotoplay.com/

> I looked pretty hard - I specifically don’t want an android OS called an mp3 player. I want a dedicated media player that has physical button controls (not touch screen), is very snappy, has a good UI, and has a purpose-built OS

There are a lot of DAPs in this style. They're just not popular because the Android-based units are perfectly fine and don't feel like Android phones with an MP3 player app installed. Most buyers don't have arbitrary OS requirements, they just want a device that works well.

I'd start by looking at the Rockbox compatible devices list: https://www.rockbox.org/

They likely want to use the device without looking at it, thus the requirement is physical buttons not a specific OS.

It’s the same issue with touch screens in cars. Anything that’s a touchscreen simply fails a core MP3 player requirement for many people.

Yup. I want to be able to use it to listen to music, start/stop/pause/skip/volume while I'm at the dentist.

I think Fiio and Hiby are the closest that exist today. They have dedicated hardware and physical buttons for the things listed in your comment. However, they do still ship with a custom Android OS and you need the touch screen to navigate your library and such. On the upside, this lets you choose your media library app. On the downside, it still isn't as good as the touch wheel on old iPods. I, too, am waiting for something like this to return. The Hiby is good enough until then for me.

Shanling uses a custom OS although it feels very primitive compared to iPods (e.g. the iPod Nano had VoiceOver for touch navigation). So I'm not really a fan of these dedicated single-function players; modern media player apps can be fast and convenient (more so than a clickwheel, honestly), and Android devices can still have dedicated control buttons. If only these devices weren't so bulky...

Shanling OS is trash. Absolute trash. Hiby OS is decent.

Fair argument, these devices (the Hiby R4, in particular, which is the one I have) are absolute tanks. Way too heavy and big to throw in your pocket for any reason, especially if you use a case. Still, it's nice to be able to (sort of) carry my own library around and never need internet to listen to it.

I've got the first boards on my desk for a media player based around the Sifli 58 chip. 1.8" amoled display and 16 buttons.

https://imgur.com/a/45GuaEA

https://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,55419.0.html

Anyone want to help with porting Rockbox?

Hold on. You wear headphones while at the dentist? How are you supposed to carry on a conversation where they ask you question and you respond HOAYRA AH OT AH HA AH

For me it's not arbitrary. An android device is a general purpose handheld touchscreen computer that happens to be used for music. That means a bunch of things to me:

1. "Touchscreen first" UX

2. Heavier than it needs to be

3. Worse battery life compared to a non-Android device

Using a touchscreen in the rain is impossible. Running out of battery sucks. Going for a run with a 240g brick is no fun, it'll pull your pants down to your knees and trip you.

Compare the specs:

    Hiby R1
    Dimensions: 86.9 x 60.6 x 14.5 mm
    Weight: 118g
    OS: HibyOS
    Battery: 19 hour play time
    Price: $159.00

    Hiby R4
    Dimensions: 129.6 x 68.3 x 18.5 mm
    Weight: 231g
    OS: Android 12
    Battery: 11 hour play time
    Price: $249

These are the things matter to me, in addition to the UX, sound quality, Bluetooth support, expandable / removable storage and sane file-based playlists.

> 240g brick pantsing you

Sometimes I wish people from 1995 could read our threads and see the things we’re complaining about.

240 grams is twice as heavy as for example an average minidisc player (https://www.minidisc.wiki/equipment/sony/portable/mz-g750) which could often weigh less than 100g.

The very first cassette Walkman was about 40 grams light: https://www.soundandvision.com/content/flashback-1979-sony-s...

The Rio MP3 player was 109 grams: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/10/diamond-rio-pmp300-m...

The classic Creative Nomad weighs in at 45g including battery: https://www.crutchfield.com/S-HglCxgxN2we/p_053NX128/Creativ...

Almost certainly a typo, the first Walkman was 390g or 14 ounces (not 1.4oz)

Yes, it seems you are correct. For example this one is 180g including batteries: https://www.1001hifi.info/2025/01/sony-wm-20-1983-worlds-sma...

Though I stand by my implied argument that older devices were not as heavy as we might remember them to be. And it is okay to consider 240g a bit too heavy in the context of a digital music player with no need for cassettes or mechanical parts.

I read the advert as claiming that the headphones for that Walkman are 1.4oz, which seems plausible (they're a very flimsy design).

> 240 grams is twice as heavy as for example an average minidisc player (https://www.minidisc.wiki/equipment/sony/portable/mz-g750) which could often weigh less than 100g.

The parent comment chose an unusually large DAP with a big screen to compare to. It’s not really a fair comparison.

Also the weights of old devices are usually listed without batteries, which could increase the overall weight by 50% or more.

I had a minidisc player a long time ago. It was a quality one, but it wasn’t the lightest or more robust thing to carry around.

You see that I used the weights including batteries for all but the minidisc player which is specced at 144g including those, right?

Well, I had something like this back in the late 90s (can't recall the year exactly)

https://walkman.land/aiwa/hs-px297

    Battery: 1AA gets 30h
    Dimensions: 111.4 x 29.1 x 80.7 mm
    Weight: 132g

Ok, so you were limited to 90 minute tapes with slow seek. But aside from that compare it to the specs I posted for the android vs non-android mp3 players. Remember, this cassette player has some seriously impressive clockwork inside that case and it's still smaller and much lighter than the android.

Also remember you can just buy another AA battery, and keep a few spares in your bag.

Ok, and each AA battery you keep in your bag adds another 23 grams, so "a few" (let's say 3) and you're already right back up to 192 grams

If you're going running with your Walkman I think 30 hours on a single AA would be fine

We live in 2026 now, with expectations that are matched to the current year.

My first Android phone was a Samsung Galaxy S2. It weighted two grams less than that Hiby R1. Of course it was much larger, but tiny by today's standards.

https://m.gsmarena.com/samsung_i9100_galaxy_s_ii-3621.php

I loved the buttons on the Galaxy Spica https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i5700_galaxy_spica-pictures...

Now that I think about it, going no-buttons might have been a driver towards larger screens. Having at least a few buttons seemed to make it much less necessary.

Never mind mp3 players, I'd love a small phone again also. It's ridiculous that there isn't a single decent android phone

Whats wrong with some Nokia brick? Has bluetooth, probably 3.5mm jack too, lasts a week, has more physical buttons than you need for playing mp3s. Costs little

I have a few, and for managing and playing music the UX is absolute ass. Fine for dialing a number and occasionally switching to silent mode, but that's about it.

Does the battery actually last a week while playing music over Bluetooth?

They last so long you forget they need charging.

> For me it's not arbitrary. An android device is a general purpose handheld touchscreen computer that happens to be used for music

Android is just an operating system. I’ve developed and shipped Android based devices that have no screen at all.

Android and Linux are both used for a wide variety of embedded systems. Saying they’re all general purpose computing devices isn’t true.

> Going for a run with a 240g brick is no fun, it'll pull your pants down to your knees and trip you.

Then don’t pick the largest device with a big screen? There are many smaller DAPs and phones that run Android. The reason that device is so large isn’t because it runs Android.

Generally, across most DAP manufacturers, the android devices are all of those things that I don't want, and the non-android devices tend to be cheaper, lighter, with better battery life. I don't specifically choose non-android, I specifically chose those other parameters and have simply noticed a pattern. I don't doubt you, but you haven't given any examples and I'm not going to spend my life searching for the exception that proves the rule.

I've got the Hiby R1 and have been pretty pleased with it. The R1 doesn't actually run android but just straight linux. It boots up in about 6-8 seconds and returns to the place you previously were. As for physical controls it's got easy to identify buttons for volume, pause (double click for previous track) and next track that are pretty easy to find in a pocket.

No experience with the R4 but seems to have good reviews with the hifi crowd.

Have you looked at Rockbox?

That brought back memories... Used to daily drive Rockbox on my old 80 GB iPod decades ago. Got a lot of use out of the FLAC support.

Latest project updates are dated 2025. Blows my mind that this project is still alive. Feels oddly out of place in today's computer industry where chips are locked down to prevent projects like these from existing.

All the more reason to keep it alive, no?

I have a Fiio M3K with Rockbox, it's great. My demands are not high though; I just want something light that I can put in my pocket, which shuffles a bunch of lofi music. It helps me tune my monkey brain out.

Not sure if this would fit the bill for you, but I really like it:

96GB Mp3 Player with Bluetooth 5.0 - Aiworth Portable Digital Lossless Music MP3 MP4 Player for Kids with FM Radio HD Speaker for Sports Running Super Light Metal Shell Touch Buttons (Actual Amazon description)

The "touch screen" is only for moving around the menu. The menu is easy to remember. Sound quality is really good and it takes a mini SD card. Right now, $40.

Pretty sure I know what music player you're talking about because I have the same requirement.

Sony's modern Walkman is an Android device. No thanks.

For what it’s worth I love mine. I have app pinning enabled in android so it’s completely locked to just my music app. Feels like a great compromise of customizability while also feeling like an all in one device

Swofy makes a little media player that has physical buttons; the crowd here at home really likes them: https://a.co/d/9icRCCs

here you go: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FPQZR6XJ/?coliid=IVRLIWZTTAHHK&c...

“Currently unavailable”…

No promises, but a Tangera might actually be what you failed to find. Fair enough for that too, as they're not exactly mainstream

https://www.crowdsupply.com/cool-tech-zone/tangara

"No Longer Available - 1,290 claimed", unfortunately.

Well that's a shame - I'd thought they'd continue to be available, but apparently not. I hadn't even noticed the banner, sorry

How hard did you look? You can type "MP3 Player" into an Amazon search box (and I'm sure Aliexpress and other competitors) and find many devices that are exactly what you say you want.

So i may install "Rockbox" again (yes - that was an upgrade), on an Kinese express-device? But, but, but...that may sound offending -sry, just for a moment i thought, "you were missing the topic completly" so... my 2 cents OT....

Platforms, globally synchronized making the Uniform, and bland?

(Reads:) "Monitored, connected beds. Antitrust pressure seem slowed"

"A Timex ad went viral this year: 'Know the time without seeing you have 1249 unanswered emails.'"

An Opinon-Refusal-Portal; the 'Wise people Of Gotham"-Citizen-Advice-Agency, the 120%-Normality, the Blue-Milk-Canal-Logic (Kishon)

I like watches cos, there once was a time, machines got that big and heavy, that wind-like waterpowered-energy couldn't make them start, nor keep them go, and therefore a 'need' of steam-engines...

"Cos nostalgia revealed a massive, underserved Service-economy-demand."

so... ?

Random thoughts, not? (-;

I've been tentatively eyeing up this which I think meets all of your requirements: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008384398058.html

This is my time to shine. I never stopped using dedicated mp3-players. After my trusty Philips Gogears died and became unavailable for purchase, I settled on Ruizu branded mp3-players. The Ruizu X02[1] is an absolute baller, cheap as hell, trustworthy and limited to the basic functionality you would expect from an mp3-player (music, movies, radio, pictures). You put stuff on it via USB + drag-and-drop just like the ol' days. Damn trustworthy too I had one soaked in water for 15 minutes - flinging it was like using a water pistol. Did it die? Pfft, this is a Ruizu we're talking about. Only thing that can destroy these are weights in the gym and even then they still play music: 'I have no light but I must play' style. No biggie, new one is 20-30 euro's it's like I'm robbing them

[1] https://www.amazon.com/RUIZU-X02-Recorder-Playback-Expandabl...

Have you looked at Cowon? These are somewhat premium end players, but they are absolutely great. Their Cowon J3 was legendary, was declared the best mp3 player of all time by some outlets. I'm currently using a Cowon Plenue D2, which is also really good.

I like Alan Moore’s take: A culture retreats into the comfort of nostalgia in especially uncertain times.

I feel retro fad of this generation is precisely this.

Edit: I’m sure that observation has more refined roots, but I’m far from well-read or well-cultured. But if someone happens to know, please let know!

Ohh that's interesting. Never heard that quote from him I don't think. I like Alan Moore's perspective on life. Seems like he had an interest more in the ancient arts, but more from an intellectual perspective.. Thanks for the reminder. I need to look at his behind the scenes stuff. I remember watching a documentary on the Watchmen (2009 film) DVD when I was a kid. Maybe it was in that. Looks like he is doing short courses this days [0]

[0]: https://www.bbcmaestro.com/courses/alan-moore/storytelling

I think it would be more accurate to say, that technology went in the wrong direction and the further we go down our current path, the more people realize this.

So some folks have decided to go back to something they knew worked, and the supply and demand sides are both growing big enough to run a viable business off of.

I disagree. The nostalgia here isn’t a pushback on the technology, but against a social belief that proved flawed and perhaps a yearning for the times when things appeared to be on the up.

The 1990s to aughties were highly optimistic times. Things like LGBT rights would’ve struggled in any other decades, but we really believed that open borders and accessible communication would break down barriers; and for a time it look liked it would.

Even weirdoes like myself, who had serious personal reservations about enabling China or Russia began to have doubts.

Fast forward to now: Technology is one very easy way to push back against those that benefit in the current economic and political outcome. And entire generations thinking they’re “cooked”.

Edit: I wonder how many HN under 40 even understand the term “fast-forward”.

I think you went for a socio-political angle, I was talking more about stuff in the tech domain.

Back in the mid 2000s, as a teen, I had a PSP, which was supported by the biggest studios and had amazing games - no equivalent device exists today (the steam deck and switch are much bulkier). Likewise, I had a Nokia smartphone that ran Symbian, and could do the vast majority of stuff my current iPhone does. It had a music player, a camera that was decent for the time, it could connect to various chat services etc. It also had nice physical buttons.

If you look at operating systems, both Windows and Mac UX hardly changed.

Since then we had a huge computing revolution, with exponentially increasing compute and a huge array of tools, but my personal opinion, is that a ton of things introduced in tech since the mid 2000s, was either not super impactful, flawed in some way, or ignored eventually. Some geniunely impactful and good stuff, simply disappeared (like Flash)

This is in stark contrast to the development that took place from the mid 80s to mid 2000s.

Considering nobody thought 'this is as far as we would get' cca 2005, I think we made some blunders, which I think are worth reflecting on, and possibly correcting.

For sure, we made and doubled down on tech blunders.

I still use cash or credit cards, refuse to use online/direct bill pay, insist on paper bills, and in general avoid consolidation. Low tech payment and paper trails.

It’s a real pain in the ass (and the nagging…), until things go very wrong; then redundancy or separation is a godsend.

Sure, you can find new MP3 players on Temu and Alibaba, but they are almost invariably nearly unusable instant e-waste (like most things on those sites) And iTunes was great back in the day -- it only got awful when Apple made it support iPhones, Apple Music, etc. When it just did what it was supposed to (rip CDs and put the contents, neatly labeled and organized on your iPod) it was unsurpassed to this day.

Yeah, people hating iTunes seem to have no clue how bad all the "alternatives" were back then. I'll be the first to shit on current Apple, but seriously, it was very successful for a reason.

Agree. I think folks are romanticizing the iPod. It synced only with Mac via iTunes, had 5 GB of storage for $400 and had 10 hours of battery life and weighed 184 grams.

Today you can get a music player whose battery lasts five times as long, weighs one sixth as much, costs one-tenth the price, and stores 25 times as much, while also offering full wireless connectivity, supporting more audio formats, video playback, and reading books.

I think the ipod being so common has helped it remain useful 20 years on. There's a lot of them being sold cheaply as people clean out old drawers, spares/replacements and upgrades are readily available, how to work on them is common knowledge and tools to work on consumer electronics is common, and rockbox is available for most of the range. MP3 players were a commodity good with a huge range of models available from practically any company capable, but most won't have the market around it. My ipod has a 128GB SD card instead of a HDD and a battery that lasts at least 5.5 days playback instead of whatever the original 650mAH allowed

I will continue romanticising the later models though - the ipod mini and nano were, at the time, a lot of value for money.

I agree on the some fronts. MP3 players that support a variety of other formats, including lossless, and have far better playback quality than any iPod ever did are out there.

But the last time I bought one I remember a mixed experience. On the one hand, it sounded incredible. On the other, as soon as I loaded all 9500 tracks in my library onto it, the UI ground to a halt. Storage wise I could have crammed many times the number of tracks on there but there was no way the user interface would cope.

And I had to organise it all manually on my computer in order to avoid a mess on the device.

And the sync experience absolutely sucked balls. There was nothing close to plug it in and forget about it.

So, with some regrets, I returned the device and got a refund. I still use Spotify[0] in the car, and CDs at home.

[0] Which I have a love-hate relationship with.

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