SnowSky/FiiO Echo MINI HiFi Bluetooth MP3 Player, 15Hours Playback, Independent Volume Control with 3.5mm/4.4mm Headphones Outputs (Black with Earphone)

Part of the fun with a device like this is getting to learn it's personality and generate a flow around it. It's not based off the plug/play cookie cutter interface everything seems to have to day. It's got personality, nuance and a bit of a learning curve. After a short time of playing though you'll be moving through the menus like a pro, figure out that "shuffle" is hidden under something called "playback loop" and maybe even be able to switch between Chinese and English without Google Translate. The device is feature packed, supports all my favorite high quality audio formats, DSD, WAV, FLAC, APE, MP3, M4A, and OGG. Sound quality is amazing with very loud volume options. Has support for corded headphones both balanced and unbalanced but also supports Bluetooth connectivity for those times you want to go cordless. Paired up to my earbuds just fine. My version came with 8G of internal memory and supports microSD cards to expand storage space. Easy to access buttons and volume controls, the volume doubles as the track forward/back when you press and hold. Unit is tiny, fits comfortably in your pocket well and is very durable. I did have some stuttering issues when I first got it, but updating to the latest firmware via the SnowSky website fixed that up. Battery life is impressive and I've yet to run the device dead yet during a day. You can use the device to transfer music to / from making managing music easy on the SD card or the internal memory. Highly recommended, for the price this is a fantastic DAP.

The TL;DR is the sound is great, its very small and light, its made out of plastic but doesnt feel cheap, satisfying buttons. I havent tested the battery life. Only issues ive had are bluetooth can be finicky to connect and the codec is only the basic one (but i dont use bluetooth all that much so it doesnt matter to me) And that i had really bad audio clipping on flacs ( On FW 1.6.2) but with a FW update to 1.8 everything got fixed! The UI is clunky to use but with some practice i got used to it. Great first DAP.

Before starting, it has no Radio/Spotify or any smart feature capability so move on if it's essential to you. The device does handle all audio formats and when you first load your music onto it, make sure it's on first to make it easier, with a few gigs of internal storage but external micro SD support up to 250 gbs, make sure you refresh your music the storage so your device can detect it. It's a one time thing so once it detects it, it'll recognize it even after you pull out the card. There's also a couple software quirks that I'll discuss near the end. Now then, if you're looking for just a bare bones mp3 player with no BS smart features and lame need for features like Spotify voice recognition or radio, this thing is, an absolute beast! Audio quality is amazing, it's not only louder then most mp3 players and even all smart phones, it sounds significantly cleaner and for you bass heavy enjoyers, you'll get top of the line low end that can sound really loud and clear without distortion, only premium players can rival it. It also can make subpar sound systems sound good (my 13 Mazda for example) and handle good bass, it will also turn good sound systems into high end (such as my 07 Camry and my Sennheiser Hd 25s headphones, which made the headphones sound notably better especially low end). It is tiny and light but doesn't feel flimsy, feels great but do factor that in when transporting it or using wired connections with weight to them. The aesthetic is super cool if you like retro style. Interface is intuitive, use volume buttons to navigate, play/pause to select, playlist looking button to bring up music settings (can also be used for navigation in the custom eq settings to shift through frequencies, using volume to boost or reduce the selected ones), and rewind button to back out. When enabled through settings, it does have fast forward and rewind capability. Now onto the software quirks: Biggest things are Bluetooth and Micro SD card detection: I had no issue with connecting my cheaper 5 below Bluetooth and it even detected some TVs, but it couldn't find my over 6 year old skull candy headphones. While I've had no issues with my SanDisk micro SD card, I used 3rd party software which is easy to find to format it to Fat32 just in case, some users have reported issues with other brands and other formats. It seems like it will work fine with most modern BT devices and cards. Volume buttons are the same as fast forward/rewind and next/previous track when playing music, so it can be a bit touchy, but easy to overlook. Overall, this is one of the greatest MP3 players ever made you definitely won't find anything better without spending several hundred dollars and having to deal with the annoyance of lame smart features! This is what should've been the natural evolution for mp3 players, economic while sounding better instead of the sad state of affairs it's in nowadays. This is an absolute must have device!

Pros: Retro, lightweight, cheap-er, sound quality, volume. Cons: Chinese, slow, difficult to navigate. If you are looking for a functional MP3 Player on the cheaper side or just want a retro MP3, I can recommend the Snowsky Echo Mini. So far for the past couple of days, it has been dependable, and I've been able to mostly figure it out after messing around with it. The Snowsky only comes with 7GB of internal space, so you will need a microSD card for it. It's able to hold up to 256GB of space. You will have to manually update it by downloading the new firmware from the Fiio website, which was very easy, just drag and drop the update file into the internal (not external) MP3 storage. BEWARE!!!! It will reset all settings (including language to Chinese) to factory after updating, so make sure you know how to get to the language settings beforehand. The UI and general navigation is a bit finnicky and slow, but it doesn't bother me much, I thought that was part of the charm. I could understand how it would get on people's nerves though. Trying to find a specific song that you want to listen to is hard, but there is a favorites tab that you can save songs to make it a little easier. Volume goes up a surprising bit, and sound quality is pretty dang solid. It features an equalizer, which I like to put on Bass and sometimes Pop. I have not tried out the bluetooth on it, so I can't say anything about it personally, but I've seen from others that it's finnicky with Airpods. I thought MP3's would be cheaper (like $20), but after some digging, it looks like you get what you pay for. This is one of the cheaper but functional MP3's on the market, but not quite cheapest. I was drawn to this one specifically because of its looks, it's very retro, and has physical buttons. I like buttons. I like retro stuff. I like physical media. I like owning songs, not just having the license to listen to them. I like having free music. This is all of the above.

Quality is good in some ways, really bad in others. It only seems to remember one Bluetooth device at a time, and will not connect to the stereo in my car at all, presumably because mine is the kind that wants to show a pin and have you confirm to connect. Okay, nbd I just buy an aux cable, but now I can't skip songs from the radio buttons. To skip on this device, one must press and hold an arrow key, which is annoying. It should really be tap to skip, hold for volume instead. Then I find out that my .ogg files won't play at all, despite it saying that file type is supported. Okay, fine. So I convert them to flac. Still says "format not supported" despite other flacs playing fine. So I try mp3. Great, they play now. But all of a sudden the right audio channel is just... gone? Bluetooth, aux, doesn't matter. Just all of a sudden it's broken. All I've done is connect the thing to a pc a half dozen times, had it 4 days and mostly been a pain in the butt every time I tried to use it, resulting in me just driving with no music instead. Audio quality is quite good, and I like the mini Walkman style design, but I am extremely disappointed I even spent $50 on this. If I were to have one that didn't break itself in less than a week I might give it 3-4 stars.

It's a neat little retro-inspired player. The sound quality is good through wired headphones, and wireless. I preferred using wired headphones as you get overall better sound. The control scheme is fine once you get accustomed to it. It's a little clunky compared to something like an iPod Classic, but it works for the form factor. It supports large MicroSD cards and you can transfer songs via USB-C, as well as charge. So far it has a leg up on older MP3 players. The issue is that my unit chokes on refreshing the library. I have to add a few folders at a time, refresh the library, add a few more folders, refresh the library, etc. There doesn't seem to be a lot of information online other than check ID3 tags, make sure your Cover Art isn't too big, and make sure your folders and file names are too long. Transferring music is simple as you just drag and drop what you want onto the SD card, but that also means you lose functionality with things like custom playlists, at least in the software I use (Rhythmbox and Amarok and Quod Libet). You may want to save money and just use a 32GB or 64GB Micro SD Card and only keep a few albums on it, like under 50.

This little player is fantastic!!! For a budget DAP, it has everything I could ever want and more. If you want something light & simple this is the DAP for you. A lot of DAPs are basically an android phone, and I wanted something that let me put files on it, and allowed me to ply those files. I don’t care for streaming at all. If that’s not a deal breaker for you, it does all its supposed to. After tinkering a bit with it, you get super used to the buttons also, i don’t relate to the comments about clunkiness at all.

OK, the first thing we'll talk about the problems, then talk about the sound. And I'll tell you upfront, it's not as good as the M3 in sound or build quality. Mine came with all the menus in Chinese! Could there have been a settings folder to change the language? How would you ever find it? DID I get the firmware update? Well, there is no way to tell if it launched itself or not! NOt easy to use at all if you don't read mandarin! With some trial and error I was able to play loose songs that weren't in an album folder. I must say it handled mp3, flac, and ogg vorbis files just fine. The sound quality is not as good as my M3 from 10 years ago. PLaying the same files in each, the bass isn't as deep, and the highs have that crispy edge we lament in digital music, which makes the sound uglier the louder you turn it up. What it does NOT have is that 'V' eq curve that scoops all the midrange out. IT's 'good enough' - but if you are okay with 'good enough' you're not looking to Fiio in the first place! The build quality is cheap and plastic-y, with some worrying wiggling of parts. My original M3 is still going, but I always worry about replacing it. THIS is cool looking, adds the perk of bluetooth ( but again, if you're chasing Fiio audiophile sound, you're probably wired instead!) - But I sent mine back! Just bring back the M3!