I've got a Volca Sample and it's awesome, but it's tough to hit the small triggers accurately - so might not work for what the OP needs. It's really best for setting up loops. You can trigger it via MIDI, but the implementation is a bit strange.

That Akai MPX8 looks pretty sweet...

Yamaha SU10

Bastl-Instruments Micro Granny 2

volca sample!

get a boss sp-202. theyre cheap and readily available on ebay if you play your cards right.

I think this one might be the right choice, the more i look into it the more i like it

just looking to hit a sample pad mercilessly [A-A-A-AIRHORN]

WOAH i never saw this, looks like a really fun toy i could use for dubby effect sounds

i have an akai mpx8, pretty well suited for this sort of thing

For one shot sample with easy triggering, cutoff reverb, delay, chop, I would definitely go for nanostudio on IOS, really simple to use. you can drag and drop sample from a third party apps on windows.
It let you have 4 giga of sample with an old device like an ipod of iphone 3. The apps cost 10 euros IIRC.
The idea here is to buy or reuse an old device.

If you want to sequence sample not in live mode, for song or pattern yes, lgpt is made for this and will do a better job.

if you have a ds lying around there are some dope homebrew programs (glitchDS is prime) that do exactly what you're looking for. also there are a couple ios/android applications out there for triggering samples.

i thought about using piggy tracker but how easy is it to load a bunch of samples and just like hit them randomly?

i guess some kind of custom raspberry pi thing is possible too, but could require a lot of extra work

I used to use a Roland SP 404 for samples but now just use piggy for my sample needs even tho this topic im also curious about because Id like a actual small sampler to lug around since the 404 got beaten up quick after traveling

does anyone know of a good small sampler for short stabs? i would like to use it for live dub.
right now i'm using lickshot by no-carrier but I would like something small and portable since you are limited to 4 samples on lickshot.

I have some devices that I could potentially use, phone, dmg, gb advance. are there some options for those devices?

I have seen the AKAI MPX8 but I was curious if there wasn't something I could use with the devices I already have. i'm also open to using something else like an arduino for example.