Old Phones made useful

Retro6 · 22 Apr 2026 at 18:18

I have an old Windows phone, its a Nokia RM-974 which has a very good battery, as far as I know this model can't support Linux or other moblie OS unless I'm mistaken, however if I am mistaken and there is a light weight OS I can flash on to it I'd be very interested to know about it.

Its got horrible user interface I only want to play MP3 music files and to be able to connect to a modern bluetooth speaker which I don't think will be that hard to achieve but I never got this far as I can't seem to find a media player on it and no easy way to access the Micro SD card which I'm going to load up with MP3 Music.

I was actually looking for a cheap phone today just to play MP3 files on it, the Motorola G24 & G05 models have decent specs and are very cheap below 50 pounds but nowhere has any in stock which would have been better and I could play YouTube and stream music. I've dug out a couple of older phones to see if they are capable of connecting to a modern bluetooth speaker and use one as an MP3 player?

Any ideas?

Retro6 · 22 Apr 2026 at 19:16

Well the good news is that the bluetooth speaker has 3.5 jack input and the Windows phone has a 3.5 audio jack so if it doesn't connect wireless I can still manually connect it with a cable, its just a question of finding out how I can play the MP3 files on the phone. I did have another Windows phone somewhere which I know has a media player on it but I can't remember what I did with that one or if I even still have it. I found my old Sony Ericsson Walkman phone, its barely used so it has a very good battery on it and it has a 2GB M2 memory card which is enough for a good number of MP3 files but it needs an adapter for the 3.5 audio jack which I could probably find online. I don't think it would be capable of connecting wireless to a modern bluetooth speaker tho but I suppose I could try it however I will need to find an 02 sim as it wont let me access any settings without a sim but it will start up in walkman mode without a sim.

Retro6 · 23 Apr 2026 at 02:07

Success... after hours of messing about with the Nokia RM974 Windows phone and its pain staking performance on the internet I managed to find a media player app that worked, it has the xbox app on it as well which is also working correctly now so I can also use that to play MP3's... fantastic I can now use this as an MP3 player and if it ever got nicked it wont matter not that anybody would steal it I wouldn't have thought which is even better.

Rroff · 23 Apr 2026 at 03:07

I went through a few old phones recently when tidying up from approx. 2004-2014 and quite often I found that the internal storage has suffered - while in most cases the firmware/BIOS is still intact so you can wipe and reinstall the main OS the original OS install data has suffered from bit-rot corruption and varying results with reformatting and reinstalling where a few the main storage memory is no longer reliable (or completely toast).

Retro6 · 23 Apr 2026 at 11:50

Rroff said:
I went through a few old phones recently when tidying up from approx. 2004-2014 and quite often I found that the internal storage has suffered - while in most cases the firmware/BIOS is still intact so you can wipe and reinstall the main OS the original OS install data has suffered from bit-rot corruption and varying results with reformatting and reinstalling where a few the main storage memory is no longer reliable (or completely toast).

This phone has 8 GB internal storage and has a 32GB Micro SD card for apps and MP3 Music. I try and put what I can on the SD card rather than the phones internal storage unless its system software or main OS. I did a lot of research last night on replacing the OS with something more suitable but there doesn't appear is an OS alternative for the RM-974 while its possible to flash an OS to it, there will be issues with compatibility with hardware like sound and general functionality rendering it useless. In some case like this its better just to leave the main OS as it is.

Retro6 · 24 Apr 2026 at 09:50

I do quite like the older phones like the Sony Ericsson W200i because they just work and will take a 2GB M2 memory card which is plenty for MP3 music. I think my O2 Sony Ericsson might take a Tesco Mobile sim.

I've never really been a fan of smartphones because they are big and clumsy and one accidental drop can and often does shatter the screen. There is a lot going on with them and annoying adds always pooping up on them etc etc. I just can't stand them. I see people everywhere I go glued to their phones like zombies... I prefer a phone with buttons nice and easy and a sat nav for navigation. I don't need everything on a phone.

Retro6 · 16 May 2026 at 22:06

I decided to have another play about with the bindows phone and I have been making some progress with it. I can now browse the internet on it and even watch online videos that play surprisingly well, but YouTube wont work because of the outdated browser. I am working out ways to install things to it like a modern browser and some other things. After searching the web I finally found that there are ways to install another OS to it but its 50/50 whether things will still work on it afterwards but it be interesting to see what can actually be done with it.