Hey there! My partner recently went through this whole process. They wanted something really sturdy and low-tech - for reference, they use a flip phone in regular life, so you get the idea. Specifically, the requirements were no touch screen, no Bluetooth, just load music files on there and be able to hit play and pause. They also had a fairly low budget.

We ended up choosing the Snowsky Mini. It’s light, pocket-sized, physical buttons, you can pop a micro SD in there to get up to 256GB of storage space. It sounds fantastic with a decent pair of earbuds.

I cannot speak to how repairable it is at the moment, and I will say that my partner is very careful with devices so I also can’t speak to how durable it is against someone clumsy like me. I’m also not a tech nerd so I can’t speak on altering hardware or software. But I can say that my partner loves it and has no complaints.

I would really appreciate a resource like this! I am still in the research phase of my balcony garden journey.

Do you (or anyone else) know if we have a guide somewhere on apartment gardening? I’m really interested in growing some stuff to save money and y’know avoid eating imported fruits and vegetables if possible

thanks for the suggestion of hacker spaces! Apparently there’s a group not far from where I live, I’m thinking I’ll swing by and check things out.