This is essentially an Android phone that can't make calls. I got it because my phone broke & all the new ones got rid of the SD card slot. All-around I'm happy with this purchase, since it does what I need it to: high capacity (SD card up to 1TB), car play, bluetooth. I only listen to MP3s so I took all the streaming apps off the front page. You can't add any apps, but the built in music app, HiBy, works good. I used to use Pulsar on my old phone and this is comparable. I use a 512 GB SD card (that's nearly full) and the app takes about 10 minutes to scan it. If you have a large digital music collection, the only major expense using this will be buying a big enough SD card, which is still cheaper than buying a modded iPod. Pros: - Bare bones, simple, don't even need to turn on WiFi to use it. - Slightly smaller than a regular phone, which means I won't be accidentally grabbing it instead of my actual phone. - Long battery life. - Easy to add files to - The SD card is a little tricky to get in and out. Why is this a Pro? Because there's very little chance you'll accidentally pop it out and lose it. If you have a long fingernails or a pair of tweezers, that'll help getting it in and out. Cons: - Small screen, at least for my fat fingers. - If the screen goes to sleep while scanning the SD card, the scanning pauses. I deal with this by changing the screen sleep setting to Always On. - There's 2 scanning modes, Everything and Incremental. Incremental is supposed to only look for new files, but I've noticed it's missed some. Just do Everything scan every time and all the music you've added will be there. -Can't add or remove apps. There's no Play Store, and if you want to remove an app you have to completely uninstall it. To de-clutter the main page, I moved all the apps I don't use to the next pages. Here's how I added my music: - Put SD card in device - Reformat SD card (this will come up when you install it) - Use USB cord to plug computer into laptop (MP3 player will automatically switch to USB File Transfer Mode) - Plug external hard drive with digital music collection into laptop - Make a new folder on the SD card called Music - Copy & paste files form external hard drive to SD card. - When done, on the MP3 player swipe down and under the USB options choose Charging Only, and unplug device from laptop. Read more
I have had a previous model which worked very well. My cheap ear buds worked perfectly with it for over a year, then suddenly one day, would not connect. I thought it was the ear buds, but when I tried them with a totally different device, they still work perfectly. My old model had been dropped numerous times, and the battery life, which wasn't great to start with had really gone way down. So I decided to buy another innioasis. My mistake! The ear buds I own would NEVEr CONNECT WITH THE NEW MODEL, EITHER. i HAE USING THE WIRED BUDS. The battery life in the new unit is worse than the current life of the old unit. Plus, both units are now doing the same glitchy things, which never occurred before. I can no longer easily access podcasts at all. the listening tab at bottom just disappears at will and even turning the unit off and on numerous times may not bring it back. Plus it is virtually impossible to look at podcast episodes any longer. It just wont' show/change episodes. It's even hard to open a book already downloaded on the unit, no listening tab, and the same chapter will just keep on repeating. with the listener tab gone, I cannot access the chapters to change them or even back it up thirty seconds to catch what I just missed while someone is talking. I believe the programming was changed to make things different, I can't see why they would both change operating ways I am VERY familiar with, at the very same time. So I think these things happened in a product update I was unaware of. NOT HAPPY!! Plus I went to hospital for a long unexpected stay and missed the return window or I would have returned th new unit. Read more
UPDATE: I've had this unit since July of 2025, it's currently January of '26, not one issue. It simply performs well whether it's in my car or using it somewhere else. I finally started using Bluetooth headphones along with my always wired output to my car, and though others have apparently had wireless difficulty, I have had nothing but success. I purchased a Bluetooth wireless remote control for this player to give me steering wheel controls, and the setup works flawlessly! The control was asin number B0DC685617, "Bluetooth media button remote control" by a company called "GLOBELEC". I left a review of that product as well. Place the control on the BACK - SIDE of a steering wheel spoke where your fingers naturally fall and you get unobtrusive buttons to control the player. The connection to the control will eventually timeout, so I have the Bluetooth connection screen from settings always active and simply hit the little square "recent apps" button to quickly access the connect screen. Tap it twice again and I'm back to the music. Read on for my original review... I use this player mostly in my car, as I like my phone to do “phone things” and not be tied up with music. If you are looking to do the same, read on as I will give you my tricks and tips for this unit, which is an excellent media player for your car (or anywhere, really) if you set it up correctly. I have vehicles that HAVE very good aftermarket stereos, but after getting this new version of the Innioasis player, I am thinking about using one in all of my cars, as this unit gives capabilities you can’t get without spending a ton of money, like a customizable 10 band equalizer AS WELL AS a customizable 10 band PARAMETRIC EQ with Q settings. Digital signal processors for car audio that do the same thing are about $300, and this comes with one built-in. I had a previous generation of this Innioasis MP3 player and was impressed with its performance and features, but a few things annoyed me. This was entirely because of the version of HiByMusic it came with, NOT the player itself. With this new version of HiBy 4.3.1, I have almost no complaints. The only thing I wish it did was give me steering wheel controls using USB tethering, as my phone is connected via bluetooth. I have the player magnetically mounted within finger reach of my steering wheel, so honestly, it’s not that much of a drawback. The hardware itself is top-notch, and I can think of nothing to gripe about there. My old unit lasted nearly 2 years in my vehicle, but finally died as the battery swelled up and popped the screen out. Considering I left it in the car year-round, baking in the heat and freezing in the winter (I won’t do that to my new one), I’m very happy with it’s longevity. Like most techie things, taking some time to experiment and learn what the unit does will pay off later. This is a VERY good player. Quality hardware coupled with an intuitive user interface that can be customized to the users liking. After my experience with my last Innioasis player, and testing of this new one, I simply cannot see why anyone would NOT like these players. One of my biggest annoyances with my previous version of this player was that the text was so small as to be very difficult to read without glasses. This version fixed it: simply set font size to “Largest” in the unit’s system settings (Settings/Display/Font Size), then in HiBy settings, choose “System Defined” as your font size (HiBy Settings/Font size settings). This made the song titles and other things actually readable while driving, and honestly it’s a whole lot easier on the eyes even if you aren’t using the player in your car. Having set this parameter so you can actually see the thing, here are some other HiBy settings I find very useful, for driving or any other use. This is written with tablet novices in mind... TRACK TRANSITIONS: I set mine to gapless, as I have many albums that one song flows right into the next one. Most music will have some silence at the beginning and end anyway, unless one track flows right into the next. This will let more of your music sound like you expect. I have aftermarket head units that will not let you choose this simple feature. DRIVING FRIENDLY MODE: You don’t need to be driving to appreciate this one. Turning this ON will allow the system “Back” arrow to be used to help navigate folders and playlists in HiBy. Just turn it on, you’ll be happy you did. PLAY THROUGH FOLDERS: Personally I prefer this as this will allow you to continue on to the next album in a folder and keep the music going. My music is arranged in folders by GENRE, ARTIST, then ALBUM. Any miscellaneous songs I may have by that artist are just sitting “loose” in the ARTIST folder. This makes for probably the easiest way to find your music. “Play through folders” continues playing alphabetically through all folders after finishing the songs in the folder you started with. OTHER SETTINGS: You can change the color of the HiBy app in the “Custom themes” menu. I find black to be the best for the car, particularly at night, but experiment to see what suits you. By the way, if you are driving at night and the screen is too bright, the “Night Light” feature of the Android system may be useful – adjust it to your liking in settings, then activating it can be as simple as one swipe downward from the top of the unit and hitting the little crescent moon icon. You can even schedule it to activate at night. If you don’t like the yellowish cast it creates, swiping downward TWICE will let you easily access the screen brightness setting, and just tap anywhere on the slider to position it. Easy to do while driving with minimal distraction. You can change the order of the items in the “menu bar”, the bar that contains “Album”, “Folder”, “Artist”, etc. (also works in the playlist menu bar). Click the drop down arrow on the right side of the bar and you will be presented with a list of possible sort options. While this allows you to choose how you sort music, you can also tap and hold a particular item, then re-arrange it, thus changing the order on the bar. I prefer to have “Folder” show up first on the bar as that is how I typically want to see things. I cleaned up the desktop area of the unit by combining all the apps except “Music” and “Settings” into a common folder (tap and hold an icon, then move it on top of another icon, repeating as desired). Then, tap and hold the “Music” icon, and a menu will appear. At the top of this menu will be an icon with four little boxes – click that button and you will be presented with an option to create a “Widget”. Touch and hold the menu then drag to the desktop. This makes a functioning “Player widget” as well as creates a nice big target of an icon to tap while you are driving, should you ever end up outside of the app. I placed mine at the top of the screen, the “Music” and “Settings” icons as well as the folder containing all the other apps at the bottom of the screen. A ten band equalizer is accessible from the main playing screen by tapping the three vertical dots at the top-right of the screen. You can now save your own EQ settings as presets that you can name, and access them from the first button on the left of the EQ screen. There is a reset button at the top of the screen as well, allowing you to quickly “zero” all the sliders and start over. HiBy also has a ten band PARAMETRIC EQ located in the main settings (Look for “PEQ” just below the “Equalizer” settings). This is a very powerful tool...set up correctly, you can fine tune your audio to compensate for acoustic deficiencies in your vehicle or its speakers. This is expert level, and if you don’t understand it, just leave it alone. Bottom line, this is a tremendous value added to the system. Playlists are easy to create and manage as well. Be sure to backup your playlists...I didn’t, but was lucky enough to get my old unit powered up. HiBy was able to export and properly import a relative path M3U file from my old player. Exporting a playlist can be done by going to your playlists, long-pressing the playlist you wish to backup and selecting one of the backup options. There is a “Mandatory landscape” mode in HiBy settings/HiByMusic Laboratory, if you want everything oriented that direction. If the player ever dies, you can pry up the screen to get to the micro-sd card that holds all of the information and music you have. I always keep my music on an external micro-sd card, so I never have to worry about loosing it if the unit dies. Even so, when it does finally quit, there’s a memory card in there if you want one. Consider getting the pack of tempered glass screen protectors the company also sells. Easy to apply and saves on scratches and cracking. That’s it. If you want one, buy this one. I doubt you can do any better, even for MORE money. P.s., I finally CORRECTLY organized all of the ID3 tags in my mp3 collection, getting EVERY file in an album and tidying up all that data. When all of that is done correctly, searching my files is not only breeze, but I now have created my own radio stations (essentially) by simply playing a genre and hitting the shuffle button. If you haven't done this with your collection, get the free application "Mp3Tag" to make the job easy. I wound up consolidating some genres for my own taste, keeping artists in VERY broadly defined genres, but it makes it workable. Read more
