Small, cheap mp3 players

[Random]

Anyone got any favorites?

Backstory: our 9-yr-old has discovered portable music. We'd like to upgrade his music player from his current SweetPea to something a little more, uh, mature looking. We'd also like to avoid spending very much money on something that is likely to get lost or broken w/in three years, though, so that rules out the iPod nano and similar.

I found this SanDisk player that seems to do everything we need it to. Thoughts?

[dodint]

Any chance you want to give him an old Android phone that isn't registered to a cellular carrier anymore? You could just add it to your Google Play Music account as a device and you're all good. And if it breaks, who cares?

[21Kid]

That small MP3 player will get lost.

My kids get all of my hand-me-downs. Works for my 7 year old. No phone service, but wifi works just fine.

[thesameguy]

Any chance you want to give him an old Android phone that isn't registered to a cellular carrier anymore? You could just add it to your Google Play Music account as a device and you're all good. And if it breaks, who cares?

This would definitely be my approach. CL is littered with Android phones for tens of dollars.

I am really disturbed that he is nine right now, and am tempted to end this conversation, but...

Have you thought about doing a roll-your-own project with Rasp Pi et al? It's more advanced than the electronics kits I was building at that age, but everything is so sci-fi these days it seems about right. My 10 year old nephew plays with Arduino.

[Kchrpm]

Have you thought about doing a roll-your-own project with Rasp Pi et al? It's more advanced than the electronics kits I was building at that age, but everything is so sci-fi these days it seems about right. My 10 year old nephew plays with Arduino.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAS! If he makes the hardware himself, he'll be less likely to lose/break it because of the sense of pride.

But I do very much like the GPM family plan solution...hmmm...

[Random]

I am really disturbed that he is nine right now, and am tempted to end this conversation, but...

Almost 10!

(And you're not the only one that is disturbed...lol)

[thesameguy]

I think you could rolling with Arduino for about $60-$70... it could be done for less, but this seems like a neat, flexible solution. Not much actual work to do, but a lot of possibilities for tweaks & such down the road...

$30 CODEC shield - https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-...-vorbis-player

Just need a ~$25 Uno and a project case.

Seems like Pi is about the same -$30 CODEC and a Pi - eg, http://www.rpimusicplayer.com/

[Kchrpm]

The issue that I can see for those kits (and the ones I've found in Google searches) is that they aren't standalone, self-contained and controlled MP3 players. The ones I've seen that are battery powered are controlled by a separate device. If the bare minimum is a AA-powered player that selects and plays music stored on an SD card and outputs to plugged in headphones, it does not seem like a simple project/kit that exists at this moment. Maybe I'm not properly interpreting the pages I've read, though.

[thesameguy]

Those things do those things - you need to physically provide the buttons, but all the functionality & connectivity is there. Power comes from 3v or 5v, so you can either use an AC adapter or one of the many compatible-voltage rechargeable batteries. It's definitely not the cheapest approach, but a good intersection of educational and functional.

[Kchrpm]

How much programming do you have to do for the UI?