[blue1]

I don’t think that’a true. Too many years have passed so I cannot cite makes and models, but I worked in an IT magazine back then and there were mp3 players with a lot of buttons, not unlike those overcomplicated VHS recorders which sold on “features”.

[realusername]

That's true, those also existed but what I've seen, they were not bought as much as the cheap kind. The ipod gave a reason to pay extra, those half way though products really did not.

I had one similar to those https://i.pinimg.com/originals/95/43/8b/95438b86a98370a741c2...

Those things really didn't have a single real feature beyond playing music and recording with a microphone in the settings (which nobody really used)

The screen and processing power was way too bad to do anything else anyways, even if they wanted to.