Can't find a decent MP3 player

About a year and a half ago my trusty and beloved MP3 player gave out after 7 years of heavy use and abuse. It was a simple no frills, small and lightweight, built to last MP3 player. I tried to replace it but what once cost me $49 is now going for $400 on amazon and e-bay.
Feeling good about the company that made my trusty MP3 player, and the one I owned prior to that which I gave to my daughter, I decided to purchase 2 of their newer models, one for me and one for my son. The new model was larger than I liked and had a ton of bells and whistles that made it take forever to turn on, but I spent the money and and was happy to have something. Well, they were nothing but trouble from the start, and I had to constantly reset them back to factory settings. Within months both were broken beyond repair and the company ignored every single attempt to contact them about my warranty.

I have been in the market for a new one ever since and can't find one that suits my needs.

I need something small and lightweight. I use it when gardening, doing housework, exercising ect. anything too big just gets in the way.

I don't want extras, no camera, no internet, ect.

I do want a screen and playlist options so I can select the songs that I want.

I want QUALITY! I don't want something that is going to break in a few months.

I don't want to spend more than $50-60

Can anyone help me out?

My mp3 player has been collecting dust for over a year. The built-in mp3 player on my phone combined with a bluetooth stereo headset does the trick for me.

My iluv bluetooth headset has noise cancellation, which is nice in noisy environments.

The Jabra BT-8010 is versatile because you can use the main unit as your regular phone earpiece, or hook up the extra earpiece for stereo. They are better when you are active because they hook around the ears.

I'm sorta in the same boat..I have an iPod touch. Current one I have is 4 years old...
Just found out that apple plans to drop the iPod line... because it only brought In 1 billion dollars last year....sheesh....so maybe the ZUNE will shine...I don't know...

I have a cell.... but not a fancy one...so the iPod touch was great.....36 whateverbytes of music...heck there are songs on there I don't even know I have....

Last trip to best buy ....last week...there was only one iPod model....that's it...

This stinks because who still has a CD collection...everyone traded in the cd's once they downloaded it all to the iPod or whatever mp3 device they had...

I'm not going to be much help but, I have tried all of the basic, non internet mp3 players out there and they were really not that great. One of things I didn't like about it was having to transfer the music to them. Sometimes the file would come up sounding bad.

When I was gifted an ipod touch 4th generation, I really didn't want it at first, but then I decided to give it a try. Now, I will never give it up lol. It's SO easy and wonderful. I can still transfer my music to it, but whenever I want to add to the catalog and buy something new, I just tap right onto itunes, look up the song or album, pay for it and it's right there. Easy as pie. I like it so much better than a basic mp3 player.

I don't have any trouble with it either. I would highly suggest the ipod touch. And what I like about it, I can take it with me wherever I go, and take pictures or video. If you don't want the web browsing on it, you can turn that off. It's handy to be able to purchase music on it and check mail.

I feel your pain. Everyone just uses their smart phone these days. I don't want a smart phone, but I do want a good portable music player.

Found this:

SanDisk Sansa Zip Clip

4 gigs wouldn't make a dent in my music collection, and of course I like to have everything available at all times...but it's not bad. And a good price.

reply to post by calstorm


Same boat man....I love apple products but not when it comes to music...i dont like iTunes and I tend to always encounter some kind of freaking issue when trying to sync my mp3s with it.

I recently bought a cool mp3 players from amazon which I cant remember the name of and It isnt written on the product....its bigger though...like the size of a phone...it plays music well and you can watch movies and and read books on it too..was only like 35 bucks...however..it looks like it is very cheaply made. So far so good thought. If you google "media" players on amazon itll come up..looks like a wider ipod. Like I said though...probably not the best item id imagine in terms of durability. Ill be following this thread though cause id like to find something nice. I wish there was a android version of the ipod that was decent. Id go with that for sure even it was 100 bucks.

The other half of the beast..is apple is slowly taking away what you downloaded....that 99¢ song is only for rent apparently....so check what you have...it may be less than you thought.....
So far after collecting all of van halen, megadeth,enya,police,Duran Duran......SHUT UP!

Half of those are gone...and more to come with each update......

So a new device without attachments will be nice...
They plug in nicely to the car radio aux....so there still must be a market!?!?

reply to post by calstorm


Based on what you said you'd need and budget I would second Sandisk's Sansa Clip Zip. It meets your criteria. It also supports lossless quality formats so you're not stuck with crummy mp3s. You can get the 8 gig version from Amazon free shipping for $50.

www.amazon.com...

I highly recommend getting decent headphones. If you do you can take advantage of the lossless formats. If you need help in this department I can give input.

**My personal setup is an iPhone 4S, Fiio Rocky headphone amp, and Sennheiser 598 headphones. Portable but not for jogging

reply to post by calstorm


just get a 2nd generation iPod Nano - Apple iPod Nano 2nd gen $50


It fits your criteria and you shouldn't have any problems. If that's all you want, then there it is.

reply to post by iunlimited491


For that same price the Sansa Clip is double the storage capacity and supports FLAC. Don't get me wrong I use an iPone for this and own a Macbook Air. I like my Apple products. That said I think the Sansa Clip is a no brainer for this member's needs. Not to mention brand new, and durability was one of the needs.

Not sure if you can get them there .. but theres a singapore company creative technologies makes a great simple mp3 player ( apple stole tech from them to create the ipod ) give their zen mp3 player a look. its also reasonably priced and sound quality is excellent.

I've got this one:

www.amazon.com...=sr_1_44?ie=UTF8&qid=1391170895&sr=8-44&keywords=sansa+mp3

8 gigs internal and with a 32 gig card, it's not too bad. I can't fit all my music in there, not even close, but I own more music than the average Joe. I listen to a lot of prog = long songs so I could fit more in there if the files weren't so large. As is stands right now it's something like 5, maybe 6,000 songs.

It doesn't have a great battery but my friend had the same thing for a while(he's a doink and lost it) but his seemed to work better so I think mine is a anomaly. It takes a while to boot but it works pretty well, although the buttons can be a pain. Don't even try and work it while driving.

It plays video but the screen is small. Plays radio, FLAC(I think). I'm happy that I have something that doesn't HAVE to be used with iTunes, I can just click and drag, and holds a decent amount of tunes. After just over a year, it still works fine. So far, as I knock on my wooden desk.

What ticks me off is they have 64 gig cards but they only work in cameras and phones, or so I'm told. I tried to put one in and it wont take music files. It may be too much money for what you are looking for but that's all I can tell you about as it's the only one I've ever owned.

iPod nano 7G

kalunom
I feel your pain. Everyone just uses their smart phone these days. I don't want a smart phone, but I do want a good portable music player.

Found this:

SanDisk Sansa Zip Clip

4 gigs wouldn't make a dent in my music collection, and of course I like to have everything available at all times...but it's not bad. And a good price.

Thank you to all who recommended this one. Looks like this is what I am going to go with. The fact that you can use an SD makes up for the 4 or 8 gigs.

I am currently using a cell phone as a last resort, but the size is really a problem and I have dropped it on more than one occasion due to it not fitting in my pockets well, when I am active it just falls out.

Expat888
Not sure if you can get them there .. but theres a singapore company creative technologies makes a great simple mp3 player ( apple stole tech from them to create the ipod ) give their zen mp3 player a look. its also reasonably priced and sound quality is excellent.

The last 3 that I owned were all Zen. I loved the first two that. When I upgraded to my second and beloved one I gave my first one to my daughter. That one is still kicking but it only holds 2 gigs and doesn't have a screen so you have to manually skip through several hundred songs to get to the one you want.

However, it is the newest zens that I have had nothing but trouble with. Not just mine, but the one I bought for my son. The quality compared to the first two that I owned went down dramatically.

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy


I could certainly use advice on earbuds.
I currently use these Ink'd because of heavy use and activity, they tend to short out on me and I have to replace them every 3-6 months so I am worried about spending more, and these seem to have the best sound compared to the others I have tried around the same price. I have been worried about spending more than that for that reason.

I also purchase foam covers separately because I don't like the plastic.

reply to post by calstorm


What kind of music genres do you mostly listen to?

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy


Metal mostly, some punk.

reply to post by calstorm


Soundmagic e10.

They are very affordable, and only a little more than those Skullcandy Ink'd 2s. They can be had for 35$ free shipping on Amazon.

They are widely recognized as great 'bang for the buck' as they perform comparable to headphones in a higher price bracket.

The tech specs of the Skullcandy Ink'd 2s has the same frequency response range as the standard apple in-ears that come with iPods/iPhones. Which is: 20Hz-20kHz. The Soundmagic e10 is 15Hz~22KHz.

www.soundmagic.com.cn...

reply to post by kalunom


I was just going to mention SanDisk!!!!
It comes in 4 and 8GB...and has a slot to increase the memory, which I did....easily and cheaply.
Works for me....I just got it but was painless to set up....even for a mp3 noob like me
www.sandisk.com...

Got mine from Amazon