Honest review after a year of ownership and near daily use
Look, if you're on the fence just buy it. This little device is phenomenal value for money. You can absolutely replace your streaming subscription with it too. The most crucial thing to do, is update the firmware. A lot of issues with v1.0 have been solved with later versions. Hiby has supported this thing and updating over Wi-fi is very simple. For example, dark mode was added in an update. Updates are stored on your MicroSD so keep that in mind if you plan on using multiple cards, you'll need to copy those files over to each MicroSD you use. For the first 5 months that I had this device I used it every single day for multiple hours. It works well with Bluetooth ear buds in my experience of course at the cost of audio quality, but sometimes cables aren't an option. If you're using it in your car, use an AUX rather than Bluetooth. This device cannot connect to some cars Bluetooth systems. It doesn't work in my Nissan or Toyota. Others online have said it works fine in their vehicle. If you're relying on that as your primary use case and don't have an AUX in your car... I'd look into it more seriously first. It's a known issue, not sure what causes it. It would however connect just fine to an FM/Bluetooth adapter, but that *really* drops the audio quality. I have a 512gb MicroSD with about 400GB of mostly FLAC files on mine. This is an $85 device. The UI is not going to run as smoothly as your $400-1000 phone. However, for what it's worth, I find it to be very smooth given those limitations and how much data I have on the device. From what I understand the ceiling is about 50K songs before you encounter real slowdown issues as that's the maximum the device can handle. If you're loading up mostly low quality MP3s you'll hit that threshold faster than with a larger file size like FLAC. Most people aren't going to have a collection that large anyway. If you realistically want to be carrying over 1TB of music with you, spend a little more to buy a more capable DAP. I can't speak for how well the OS would still run with 2TB of music, but I can't imagine it would be that much different at 800GB with how it performs now. Another helpful tip -- When putting music on the device, power off, unplug the MicroSD and put that into your PC. Transferring to the card by itself is *much* faster than transferring to the device with the card installed. The included screen protectors aren't great. They're soft plastic. They serve their purpose, but it would be better if they were glass. Granted, if they were I'd probably have broken them by now. I've put this little device through its paces, but thanks to its small size its an easy every day carry. This is so small it can fit into that useless small pocket of your jeans with ease. I've thrown it around, banged it up, scratched it. It still just works every time. The charge also lasts really well, and I've experienced no battery issues. A charge can last for weeks turned off in a drawer. The tl;dr For the price you're paying you're getting a lot. It's not perfect, but honestly darn close in my book. High quality audio, Bluetooth, Wi-fi and up to 2TB MicroSD support. The screen is vibrant and sharp. Cover art looks incredible on it. You might get an error here and there. I encountered some. However, I've never encountered something world ending or something that wasn't solved by just redoing the action or restarting the device. You're not getting iPod level software or smoothness but guess what... Apple doesn't make em anymore and this is far and above a better option over using an old iPod in my opinion. You might need to search on Reddit for answers to your questions as they pop up if you're new to DAPs or not as tech savvy, but this is by no means a complicated device. Read more
