I've for a long time preferred MP3 players over phones for the sake of simplicity, battery life and audio quality. My first MP3 player was the Creative Nomad with a 32mb smart media card, I believe it was from 2001. I had this when I was 4 to 7 and it had kids music on it. it is pretty useless nowadays with smart media cards being obsolete and only maxing 64mb's lol.  My second MP3 player was a Sansa M230. Was a great little player. ended up loosing it on the school bus at some point. My third was a Chinese knock off Ipod nano... I actually kind of liked the thing! unfortunately water damage killed it! My fourth was a Sansa Clip Jam, I do like the clip jam but in terms of cusomizablility it is trash... it is capped at 32GB SD card which I am not happy with. the firmware was hard locked on Sansa firmware. no possibility of adding Rockbox. My fifth was an IPOD mini with upgraded solid state memory and batter (done by me)... LOL IT LASTED ALL OF A COUPLE WEEKS. then it broke for some unknown reason. screw apple lol. My Current MP3 player is a Sansa Clip+ So far it is my favorite. I've managed to get Rockbox on it and upgrade the memory to 250 gigs! i also use it as a USB stick!. and it has a USB mini plug (instead of micro or usb C) so it is more sturdy. all in all probably the best mp player for my needs.

Speaking of which. Does anyone around here have a Sansa Clip+ (the small rectangle with square keypad and blue-yellow screen) in their junk box that they don't use anymore? I'd happily buy it in the future even if the battery is crapped out in it. as long as the motherboard still works I'd just fix her up and use it as a spare just in case mine takes a dump lol.

Smart media card:

Creative nomad:

Sansa M230:

Chinese Nano:

Sansa Clip Jam:

IPOD Mini

Sansa Clip+:

My first MP3 player was a Polaroid with a camera on the back, which the camera sucks on it.



Now I have a Eclipse by JLab SupraFit 8GB player with bluetooth and camera and FM radio which I got it at Best Buy. But although the battery is now shot in it so I use a portable charger for it now.

I had a Cyber Sound (Chinese noname ?) player from ~2005. It lasted maybe 5 years, until one day its firmware got corrupted during file transfer and it stopped working

In ~2008 i got a Chinese noname "mp4" player with camera, mostly for use as a pocket camera as it was very thin and compact. It was ok for the purpose at the time (though the camera quality was as bad as cheap webcams of the mid 00s). The short battery life made it fairly useless as a player

I also got a Creative HDD player with dead HDD from a family member (the device is from ~2006..08 or so). It fails to spin up and probably got destroyed by dropping the device

I prefer a stand-alone MP3 player as well...I have a few different ones. Might be something I'll upload pic's of to my gallery at some later point (in the off-topic section ofcourse)

I also got a Creative HDD player with dead HDD from a family member (the device is from ~2006..08 or so). It fails to spin up and probably got destroyed by dropping the device

The hard-drives in Creative players can be replaced (did it with mine), not that hard to do, but you do have to use only certain drives or you risk killing the player.

I planned to do this but never got around - It's still tucked away waiting. I dont know whether the new drive must be prepared in any way beforehand (formatted in specific way, some firmware installed on it or so)

250 gigs is definitely a preferred for me since I have one. It can last a very long time. Check out the 1 Terabyte iPod video on Youtube if you haven't seen it yet. It's pretty cool.

I dont know whether the new drive must be prepared in any way beforehand (formatted in specific way, some firmware installed on it or so)

You don't have to do anything to the drive beforehand.
From what I remember, there's a basic firmware already in the player itself... after installing the new drive you connect it to the computer, run a creative app to install the little OS & format the drive. I should still have the instructions somewhere, but it was a fairly easy process.

I'm still mourning the loss of the iPod shuffle...

I have two and both still work, however I don't overuse them. When the batteries conk out, I'm not sure what I'll do.

What I like most about them is that I can operate all functions without looking (such as when driving my car).

At the moment, I use a Sansa clip jam in the car. It works and does the job, but it occasionally needs a hard reset.