Sim free basic smartphone for audio books/music for 9 year old advice needed please

[EggyPegg]

I've always been dead against the DC having their own phones until they are much older. There's time enough for them to become part of that world.

However DS1 loves to listen to music and audio books. When I was his age I had a cassette player, so I could take myself off to do that. But there doesn't seem to be a modern equivalent of that now, without him needing to download to or stream on a device.

I bought him a touchscreen iPod a couple of years ago (an older model) but have never given it to him because our laptop had a huge tantrum when we tried to install iTunes. As I've got an Amazon Music account, I'd rather not get back into iTunes anyway if I can go it.

Today I've been wondering about getting him an inexpensive smartphone. Sim free that I can install audio and music apps onto. He has a Kindle Fire already, so it would be to use exclusively as an audio device. He has some audiobooks on the Kindle, but nothing that he really likes, and we use an app linked to our library for free borrowing.

Has anyone else done similar please? Any words of wisdom?

Thank you.

[MrsMariaReynolds]

I know you said no iTunes, but the only thing i can think of for this purpose is a newer model iPod touch. Even with a cheap mobile phone you'll quickly run into problems with storage capacity. But you can get an iPod that will store up to 250+gb of music, etc. You shouldn't need to access iTunes on a desktop computer to set up an iTunes account on an iPod.

[EggyPegg]

Not needing to put it on a desktop is a game changer for me. I'm old school with iPods, I admit. I have a Nano (11 years old and only just playing up. I've not updated the music on it in 11 years either, so I admit that I didn't realise that you could do it without needing to plug it all in now.
I will look into it, thank you.