It's a Creative Zen Stone that I got as a Christmas gift in 2008. I just found it in a drawer, and it's still holding charge. The last thing I put on it was The Life And Times Of Scrooge by Tuomas Holopainen, in 2015 -- I don't know why, at that time I definitely had a smartphone.
It has a headphone jack, which immediately makes it better than every smartphone produced in the last several years, and it can easily drive my 80-ohm Beyerdynamic. The audio quality is as good as one can expect. The only drawback is that it only holds 1GB... my old CD rips had to be compressed to hell and back.
Let me reiterate that this has been sitting untouched for a decade and was immediately ready for action. No login, no annoying software updates, expired subscription, or remote bricking by the manufacturer. Eat my shorts, Spotify Car Thing.
P.s. A Lifetime Of Adventure is a banger. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWwSVOo5K_k
I have a Rio Volt SP-250. A CD-MP3 player I've had since 2001. The in-line remote died somehow but the unit itself works flawlessly and is in excellent condition. It runs on AA batteries; originally they were rechargeable but they were Ni-MH cells. I don't know where its charger went, but I can run the thing on Alkaline batteries or charge Eneloops in a separate charger.
It long outlasted the iPod it replaced and is still serviceable to this day.
The remote was awesome, when you had a hundred mp3s on a cd it was so easy to navigate. Upgraded to the Rio Volt and then Rio Karma after that, always wished they would use those expansion ports for another remote.
Karma is still one of the best mp3 players ever made. Flac, gapless playback, parametric equalizer, dock, etc. Made the iPhone look like junk except for the control wheel being a bit too easy to break.
I still have the Volt and a couple of Karmas. 128gb compact flash cards are drop in replacements for the HDD so you get even more space and better battery life. Unfortunately the phone is just too convenient to use so they collect dust now.
I pretty much only ever used the remote; I have to keep remembering how to use the main controls.
Fortunately, you can do everything you need to do with just a headset plugged into the device. They didn't ONLY put the controls on the remote. I've seen iPods and a lot of televisions do that.
I do end up using my phone with a set of ANR headphones most of the time, but the time may be rapidly coming when I do away with smart phone life and return to tradition.