Portable Music Player

[h4rm0ny]

Hi.

I want something that can hold my library of MP3s, support lots of playlists well, and play the music out of some speakers (Bluetooth and NFC or a dock if necessary).

It's probably the dumbest question in the world but trying to find something that does what I want and ONLY what I want is driving me nuts. Before someone says "phone", I have a Windows Phone. And whilst it is great in every other respect, I don't think I've seen anything worse for actually playing music than this sorry little device. The bundled software consists of MS's own Music app (shoddy playlist support, no play to NFC, mainly designed to get me to buy songs and sync crap between devices) or Nokia's LumiaPlayTo (plays to external devices, useless playlist support, dire interface). I've just spent the past forty minutes going through apps in the store, weeding out the ones that just want to download "free music!!!!!!" from Soundcloud - which was most of them - and those that have no ability to play to other devices or crappy playlist support (the rest).

What can I buy that lets me stick a lot of MP3s on it, build playlists and easily play them to some external speakers? This is all that I want. Every and any feature other than this, I consider a minus.

EDIT: Also, portable speaker recommendations (battery powered), welcome!

 

[El_Watcher]

Although not a recommendation per se, the Sony NWZ-A15S probably does most of what you need. It is just an MP3 player and supports BT and NFC. No idea on sound quality, but if you are connecting to portable speakers, I guess sound quality is not high on your priorities
There are other Sony's that do similar but they are mostly small things with little storage.

 

[h4rm0ny]

Although not a recommendation per se, the Sony NWZ-A15S probably does most of what you need. It is just an MP3 player and supports BT and NFC. No idea on sound quality, but if you are connecting to portable speakers, I guess sound quality is not high on your priorities
There are other Sony's that do similar but they are mostly small things with little storage.

Thanks. That looks like exactly what I need. Reviews on quality were good so I've ordered one. Yes, quality from portable speakers isn't that great, but I can't carry my 5.1 hi-fi set up with me everywhere I go. And that's set up to play through my AVR via DLNA through my Servio install on my NAS so the quality of this device shouldn't matter too much.

I just seem to have this blindspot when it comes to finding a decent portable MP3 player. Really helpful answer - thanks!

 

[TheVoice]

Cheap Android device would've been an alternative. Plenty of good music players, expandable storage and you've got the flexibility of access to services like Spotify.