And back before the iPod popularized using flash storage or spinning rust for portable music players, the holy grail in small portable music players was a CD player that could read MP3s off a data CD and play them (and play regular audio CDs of course). Just imagine, 6+ hours of music on ONE fucking disc!
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It cost over a hundred bucks when it was new, but I loved this god damned thing. It couldn't even do "seamless" playback (there was always a little 1/4 second gap of silence as it loaded the next track) and it was picky about filenames and folder nesting depth, but it worked, was built like a tank, had good battery life, and served me well for years.