The Nintendo Switch 2 is one of the most popular handheld gaming consoles and it continues to sell out rapidly after its launch this year. Bundles are a great way to get a game included at no extra cost and this one is a standout.

Right now, Walmart is selling the Nintendo Switch 2 + Mario Kart World bundle for $449 — a $50 discount from the regular $499 price. If you prefer Amazon, the retailer is price-matching. Note that you’ll only see the lower price once you add the bundle to your cart on both platforms. That’s a $50 savings on the standard cost, making it one of the better Switch 2 deals I’ve seen after Black Friday.

This bundle includes the Switch 2 console along with a full game download of Mario Kart World, the newest entry in Nintendo’s long-running and wildly popular kart racing series. With the Switch 2’s improvements, Mario Kart World takes advantage of higher resolution, smoother frame rates and more detailed tracks than we’ve seen in past games.

CNET’s Scott Stein reviewed the Switch 2 and gave it 8.5 out of 10, praising its design, display and notably better graphics than rivals like the Steam Deck. The Switch 2 is an excellent overall upgrade and earned an Editors’ Choice award from our team. It is worth noting, however, that, in his tests, the battery lasted a mere 2 hours before dying. He points out that storage will need upgrades as well, given that newer games are larger in size.

While you’re buying the Switch 2, browse our roundup of Switch 2 accessories to deck it out and truly make it your own. And if you’re Team Blue, check our list of the best PlayStation deals too.

Why this deal matters

A $50 discount on a new console bundle is rare, especially this early in the Switch 2’s life cycle. Because Mario Kart World is a $70 title on its own, getting both the game and console for $449 is excellent value. If you’ve been waiting for a meaningful price break on the Switch 2, this is one of the best opportunities so far.

Back in the days before smartphones, it seemed like everyone had an MP3 player. The best-known device was the iPod, which debuted in 2001. It wasn’t the first portable media player, but it definitely helped popularize the idea of putting 1,000 songs in your pocket.

MP3 players continued to exist alongside smartphones for some time, and even added support for additional music file formats like WAV, AAC, WMA and FLAC. But as music streaming replaced the traditional practice of buying digital albums and tracks, it wasn’t long before having a separate music player felt redundant. iPod sales peaked in 2008 (the same year Apple launched the App Store for iPhones), and the last iPod was discontinued in 2022.

Still, just because you can keep all your music on your phone, that doesn’t mean it’s always the best idea. Let’s say you’re headed to the gym or going out for a run, and you don’t want to be tempted to check your messages. A separate portable music player gives you all your tunes without the distracting notifications.

Or say you’re somewhere with a poor signal: You’re riding the subway or driving through the woods, and you want to listen to a podcast. You can still access any episode that you’ve downloaded to your phone. But all those files take up precious storage space, which is probably already being used by your apps, photos and videos. 

One solution is a 2000s throwback: keep all your music and podcasts on a separate device. 

Before you rush out to buy a secondhand iPod or Zune, you might want to dig through that box in the back of your closet. Chances are, you already own a device that can be used as a dedicated MP3 player.

Your old smartphone is perfect for this task; it doesn’t have the classic iPod click wheel, but it can still run Spotify or hold the music files you own.

What are the requirements for turning an old phone into an MP3 player?

Your old phone probably no longer has a data plan. No problem: as long as it can still hold a charge and power up, you can play any track that you’ve saved in your digital music library. 

If you can connect your device to Wi-Fi, you can use it to stream songs or podcasts. And if you download your files while your device is connected to your home internet, then you can take them with you wherever you go.

To save your songs and podcasts, you’ll need to use the latest version of your preferred music streaming app. Even if your old phone can’t upgrade to the latest system software, there’s a decent chance that it can still run Spotify, YouTube Music or similar apps. 

Spotify can still be accessed on phones that were released eight years ago. You can download the app on any iPhone running iOS 16.1 (supported by devices as old as an iPhone 8 or iPhone X) or above. You have even more options if you use an Android phone: Spotify is supported on Android OS 7.0 (Nougat), which was released in 2016.

YouTube Music has similar requirements: you can download the app on iPhones running iOS 16 or above, and on Android phones running Android OS 8.0 or above.

SoundCloud can be downloaded on iPhones running iOS 16.4 or above, and on Android phones running Android OS 8.0 or above. 

Apple Music has the fewest restrictions. The app can be downloaded on iPhones running iOS 10.0 or above, and Android phones running Android OS 5.0 or above.

How to put your music on your old smartphone

If you’re using a streaming app like Spotify or SoundCloud, you can download tracks, playlists and albums to listen to them offline. However, you’ll need to have a premium subscription to the service. (Spotify lets free users download podcasts.)

As for how much music, audiobooks and podcasts you can download, your main limit will be the amount of storage on your device. 

Spotify lets you download up to 10,000 songs on up to five separate devices. You can keep your downloads indefinitely, as long as you maintain your Spotify Premium subscription and you access the app at least once every 30 days.

You can’t download individual songs separately on Spotify, but you can download albums or custom playlists. Tap the arrow icon to save the album or playlist to your library. Once they’re downloaded, they’ll be marked with a green arrow icon.

YouTube Music will let Premium users download an unlimited number of songs across up to 10 devices. To save a track for offline listening, tap the three-dots icon and tap Download. You’ll see a checkmark icon appear next to each saved track.

SoundCloud Go and Go Plus users can also download an unlimited number of tracks for offline listening. Tap the arrow icon next to any of your Liked songs and albums. 

Apple Music subscribers can download up to 100,000 songs. Go to your library, tap the three-dots icon next to the tracks you want to save offline, and tap Download. 

If you’ve purchased any songs or albums digitally, you can access those files from your phone’s music player app. And if you own CDs or other physical media, you might consider saving those tracks to your device with the help of an external disc drive. 

Once your old phone is set up with your favorite tunes, all you need to do is find a pair of wired headphones and party like it’s 2005.

Don’t have an old phone? Here are some great portable MP3 players

If you don’t have an old smartphone lying around or don’t feel like setting it up, you can still buy a brand-new MP3 player. These modern devices are compact and easy to use. They’re relatively affordable, with some options under $100. And they include a headphone jack — arguably one of the most important components of a dedicated music player.

Spotify Wrapped is a fun annual roundup of your listening habits. Every year, the music streaming app adds new features, like back in 2023, when it assigned people a Sound Town, meaning a city that supposedly matched their listening style. The Spotify Wrapped for 2025 just landed on Wednesday, and new features this year include a multiplayer game called Wrapped Party and an in-your-face assessment of your listening age.

That last one blew my mind a little. My actual age is 57. According to Spotify, my listening age is 79.

SEVENTY-NINE.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

President Donald Trump and former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are 79. Liza Minnelli is 79. Cher — well, she’s ageless, but technically, she’s 79.

Look, I’m no teenybopper, I get it. I’m a proud Atari Wave Gen Xer. So it’s not like I was 18 and was then told I was listening to AARP tunes. But does Spotify realize how it sounds to be hit with a listening age that’s 22 years older than I really am?

What’s my age again?

I’m not the only one Spotify is aging up. My 18-year-old daughter was told she was 37, maybe because of her love of 1990s emo. Some people get aged down — my colleague Corinne Reichert’s 73-year-old mom was labeled 21. («She listens to a lot of K-pop,» her daughter says.)

Spotify pegged my colleague Jon Skillings as an octogenarian, with a listening age of 86, «since you were into music from the late ’50s.» Blame that on his passion for jazz and a healthy dose of Miles Davis and Duke Ellington in his sonic excursions. At least Spotify had the good taste to play Count Basie’s 1957 version of April in Paris when it delivered the news.

«I won’t lie. That 86 did sting a little,» Skillings says. «I really thought I was mixing in a lot more tunes from this century.»

For the record, Spotify did flag a 2024 release from the contemporary jazz pianist Vijay Iyer as his top album. «See?» he says. «I can keep up with the times.»

But Skillings looks like a spring chicken next to CNET’s Ty Pendlebury, who wrote our main Spotify Wrapped article and revealed that Spotify bluntly told him he was 100.

I may be old, but I got to see all the cool bands

I know 79 isn’t old to many people. I lost my sister Claudia last December at 78, and her ghost will haunt me forever if I get snippy about an age she never even got the chance to complain about. But there’s something jolting about seeing an age that’s 22 years older than you are, especially relating to music, where the industry is always riding on the back of some hot new young singer.

Do I really care? Maybe I shouldn’t. There’s a T-shirt that says something like, «I may be old, but I got to see all the cool bands.» It’s probably made for Baby Boomers, but as an Xer who saw Prince live in his hometown of Minneapolis in his best decade, the 1980s, I proudly identify with that remark. 

I’ve seen some oldsters in concert, yeah, can’t deny it. A couple of years ago, I saw Steely Dan at an outdoor amphitheater near Seattle. (No static at all.) I saw folk legend Pete Seeger perform with Arlo Guthrie at the University of Minnesota one year. My mom, born in the 1920s, and my brother, a 1944-born baby, were with me, and we were all rapt. There were kids bouncing on their parents’ laps at that show. Pete and Arlo’s music knew no age. And as an 1980s concert-goer, I’ve seen bands like The Pet Shop Boys, REM, U2, Redd Kross, The Church, and the Pixies.

But as mom of a teenage daughter, I’ve also been flooded with more modern music, and I love it, too. Thanks to her, I’ve seen Panic! at the Disco, Alex G, Car Seat Headrest, Melanie Martinez and Slaughter Beach, Dog. And my daughter isn’t easy to categorize, either. She’s in an emo groove these days, listening to music from before she was born, and saw My Chemical Romance kick off their Long Live The Black Parade tour, where they performed their 2006 album The Black Parade in its entirety.

How does Spotify determine your listening age?

Spotify claims my listening age is 79, not because I sit around watching Lawrence Welk Show reruns, but because I «was into music from the early ’60s.» 

I think my Spotify musical age has a lot to do with me watching the recent Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown and suddenly deciding Spotify was the perfect way to catch up on Dylan’s music. I was just a little too early for his heyday, although I lived just off the famous Highway 61, where God said to Abraham, kill me a son. OK, so I saw the movie, and I mainlined me some Dylan on Spotify.

So why not hand me a decade instead of an age? I was born in the ’60s, so dubbing me a ’60s baby would be just fine by me. (My birth year is 6-7, which should be a popular year with Gen Z and Alpha.) I grew into my musical tastes in Minneapolis in the 1980s, with Prince, The Replacements, Husker Du and The Suburbs, so call me an ’80s child and I will put that sucker on a T-shirt and flaunt it. 

I’ve decided I’m going to wear my Spotify age proudly. Nobody should be shoved into a musical pigeonhole; there are great tunes from every decade, if you’re open enough to listen, and an 80-year-old can listen to whoever they choose. I’m proud that my musical tastes aren’t narrowly defined by my birth year, but instead, are open and vast. 

So you’ll excuse me if I look at Spotify calling me 79 and quote an iconic song from those Gen X gurus, Nirvana:

Oh well, whatever, never mind.