Looking for a MP3 player in 2025?

I know people just put music on their phone but really want a MP3 Player I had in the past. Was looking the new Sony Walkmans since they have good sound quality and I'm trying to avoid chinaware devices. Previous I got a off brand one on Amazon and it broke pretty quickly. Any suggestions from some fellow lains?

I have used the Sony A55, and also some chinaware devices. I was very surprised to find that the build and sound quality of the more expensive sony was poor compared to the chinese devices. My favorite brand has been Hiby, Fiio was decent but not as robust as Hiby. The Sony sounded about as good as my 5 year old samsung phone.

Nothing wrong with Chinese products inherently, although I tend to be wary of hooking them up to a computer with the various few cases of them having malware in them which would be valid concern. >>87113 I was thinking of getting a Hiby R4 myself since too broke for something more pricy but I do wish they had some sort of dial for browsing down lists.

>>87111 The HIFI walker and presumably another brand version of it have the form factor of a zune/ipod and can play a variety of file types form SD cards. I have been using one for a few years, and they aren't bad when you find them for $100 during a sale. Don't be fooled by some of the reviews, I think a number of the "it won't do X Y Z" is more like people can't RTFM and change settings. It's my go-to car audio system and I only have to charge it about once every week or two. It does have an alright bluetooth, but wired is always better anyway. https://hifiwalker.com/ There's another one from Surfans and Mechen that has slightly different button configurations, but I imagine it has the same internal hardware I'm not going to buy another one though just to compare.

If your only concern is China you have bigger problems than where to store your music. single-board computer that soykaf.

My current mp3 player, which I had for more than 3 years now, is a Sandisk Clip Jam (the one in the picture). It has 8GB of space, doesn't need batteries, the battery duration span is over a few days with normal usage, also it can play FLAC files, storage is extendable with an micro-SD card, it has a FM radio receiver, and if that's important for you, it can render Unicode characters. The only thing lacking is bluetooth in case that's something you were looking for. IIRC I got it for 40 euros.

>>87111 I have mixed experience with chinese players. I have Shanling Q1, which has amazing sound for such price. I liked the design too. But I broke the port and I can't find anyone who would fix it. Right now I'm using Lotoo PAW Pico, which lacks a display and a dedicated DAC. The sound is noticeably worse, but still pretty good. It can play DSD too, but its built-in storage is too small for DSD files. It has no display, which might be inconvenient.

I've been daily driving both a Sony Walkman nw-A105 and an iPod classic. Both are pretty fun, the Sony one has internet conectivity and de-googled Android, and the iPod is running rockbox and the battery can last for weeks. I have the same music on both so I just pick whichever I feel like using.

Colorfly’s Pocket HiFi C4 Pro has a cool design. I wonder if there is any similarly interesting designs out there but better quality sound.

Currently, quick and easy setups will be rockbox'd ipods, Hiby series players, or cheap-ass players. Example... i have an R1, it is entry level for that brand and *was* less than 100 dollars. It has gone up a bit, but lately here in America everything has. If that is too much, search ebay for used ipods to fix up. Most of the parts arent too expensive and there are at least 2 reputable sites for them. You could jsut get a working 'pod for my 60 bucks or less, as well. It'll likely be really ugly, and will likely need an HDD upgrade to SDcard anyways. Any lower in price and modern chinese players will be soykaf, You will only want them for, at most, 500 songs, no albums and shuffle only. UI will be miserable, often sluggish. There were some good players posted in this thread so far, Quick Tunes, that Sandisk player is your friend and theyre dirt cheap and i think even still sold in some stores. I've heard the Surfans/Hifiwalker players are good, I think ONE of them can utilize Rockbox? Any other lainons with more experience with those may have that answer. If you just want a few hundred songs, you could Opus encode them at 96kbps and load em on your phone for minimal space usage. You won't have HiFi sound, that is for sure, but using a phone already entails that anyways.