Lets create the PineCom

[nyxxenator]

I'm a little surprised that anyone uses an MP3 player.  I went straight from cassettes to smartphones.  I'm not sure what good an MP3 player is when everyone carries a smartphone.

I did explain the use case in my post.

To add to that though, I don't like the hyperconvergence that has happened with cellphones. It's useful sometimes but other times it gets in the way. For instance, I could use a separate GPS unit because of how bad it is to be in horrible highway traffic trying to go somewhere and needing updates from my GPS... and then someone calls me. I'd love a device that gives me a separate screen+sound but it could otherwise give me the same navigation as what I get on my phone. Then some annoying telemarketer, or a relative, wouldn't cause me to miss my turn.

I have a dozen old phones that do all these things very well.  And should there be an emergency, they will still call 999.  They just do everything so much better than any standalone device.  The only downfall in some cases is battery life.  But in all the uses I have, they don't run off the internal battery anymore.  And unlike standalone MP3 players, I can add songs and playlists from my NAS via ftp when the devices are places out of reach. Often I don't know exactly where they are when I do that.

OK, well.. good for you? I use my phones until they start having errors with the flash memory or other problems so I don't really have old devices that are very useful. My newest phone is 3 years old at this point and when it was new it replaced a phone I had for 4 years. And they're the size of a small tablet and not really convenient to strap on your arm for some running music.

A smaller device that is cheaper because it doesn't need the cell modem, because it's not your cellphone, should be a no-brainer in my books.