Today, every smartphone is a portable media player; however, prior to the smartphone explosion in the 2007-2012 time frame, a variety of handheld players were available to store and play music.

Portable CDs were a terrible idea, but Moondrop reckons it can sell its version to audiophiles thanks to support for hi-res codecs.

VLC Media Player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

CDs can also be played, and players may support MP3 and other formats. See portable media player. THIS DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. All other reproduction requires permission.

There was a brief time in the early 2000s when we carried cellphones, wallets, keys, and a bespoke digital media player loaded with a small selection of our music libraries. Devices like iPods ...