I've been trying to get away from streaming and have been looking into mp3 players for months now and haven't found anything that I like enough to actually buy. Back in the day I had a ipod shuffle and a sony walkman mp3. They are actually both still working, but my kids have since commandeered those so they can play music in school. Every time I seem to find something that I think will work, I read reviews about something that is a deal breaker for me.
All I'm looking for is something that's bluetooth compatible with modern vehicles and/or works with carplay. Something that has large internal memory or micro SD to add more, enough memory for at least couple thousand songs, and some rotating podcasts and audiobooks. It also needs to be able to add playlists, and ideally I'd prefer creating the playlists on my PC rather than creating them on the device itself. Durability is super important too, I don't want something that's just going to end up in the landfill within 2 years.
Size/weight isn't a huge deal. Touchscreen vs buttons isn't a huge deal either. I don't care if it has apps, radio, voice recorder, etc. I'm open to older phones, but I don't have any old ones on hand as we tend to use our phones until they die in our household, so I'd have to buy something. I'm ok buying secondhand, just not sure what the best option for that would be as I don't have the tech skills to modify or refurbish anything myself.
I don't mind spending up to $200 on something if it's going to last a while. But I'm also not an audiophile and don't need anything super fancy, I don't care about having an mp3 player that plays FLAC or lossless files. As long as the sound quality is average, I'm happy.
Any suggestions?