FiiO M7 Portable Music Player Review

The M7 is by no means a perfect device, but taking into account what it was designed to be, I honestly do consider it to be the best complete device to have left the FiiO factory.
Pros
  • Good sound
  • Great UI
  • Solid Bluetooth performance
  • Value
Cons
  • Just a few software bugs
  • Could do with a few more features
  • Not a lot of power
  • FM Radio isn't very good
Final Rating
calcRating
Rating Details
Bottom Line
The M7 is by no means a perfect device, but taking into account what it was designed to be, I honestly do consider it to be the best complete device to have left the FiiO factory.
Table of Contents

Specs

  • Output power: 40mW (32 ohm)
  • Output Impedance: 2 ohms
  • Frequency response: 10 – 90kHz
  • SNR: 117 dB
  • THD+N: 0.004%
  • Display: 3.2-inch TFT touch display 480×800 (292 ppi)
  • Weight: 116g
  • Battery life: 20 Hours (MP3) / 26 Hours (Bluetooth)

Packaging

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The packaging for the M7 is exactly what we’ve come to expect from FiiO – a predominantly black and white colour scheme and showcasing just a few of the products most important features. FiiO made sure to point out the M7’s wide range of available Bluetooth formats.
Overall the packaging isn’t quite as premium in look or feeling as what can be found with their X3 Mark 3, X5 3rd Gen, or X7 Mark II, and is perhaps more akin to what we say with the X1 2nd Gen.

What’s in the box?

  • FiiO M7
  • USB charging / data transfer cable
  • Silicon protective coverfiio-m7-box-contents

Accessories

Usually we don’t really get many extras with music players, and this is true also for FiiO’s lower-cost devices. And yet, they still manage to go just that little extra mile by including some sort of protective case for the device, which is more than we could say from the likes of Shanling.

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No, the silicon case doesn’t exactly scream “premium”, but at least it’s something. As far as silicon cases go I should say that the one included with the M7 seems quite well made though, as all the cut-outs and other elements line up really well with the device.  A more premium case would’ve been nice, but at this price-point it’s totally acceptable not to get one included in the box. FiiO has already indicated that there will be a faux leather case available for the M7 which will set you back around $15 or so. Also, more recently they’ve announced a “stacking kit” made specifically for using the M7 in conjunction with the Q1 mark II external DAC/AMP at an asking price of around $20. Essentially this stacking kit consists of a formfitting case for each device that has been combined to form a single unit. So far there doesn’t seem to be a similar solution for stacking the M7 to the Q5 though.
Hopefully FiiO will also make a more universal stacking kit available as well, perhaps similar to what they’ve done for the X5 3rd Gen..

Design

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ak-120-mk-ii
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To some extent, the design of the M7 is both new to FiiO, whilst also drawing a few design cues from the X5 3rd Gen and X7 Mark II, in particular with reference to the volume dial. But, it is perhaps a more conservative design as it doesn’t incorporate any extra edges and angles like we saw on those 2 higher-priced models. Overall it sticks closer to a more traditional candy-bar design.
Aesthetically the M7 looks perhaps most like the AK120 Mark II and AK100 Mark II from Astell&Kern. This is especially true when we look at the position of the display. Usually we’d expect the biggest part of the bezel to be situate at the bottom edge of the display, whereas for both of those Astell&Kern devices and the M7 the largest bezel portion is situated above the display. Along the left-hand side we get a set of play/pause and skip buttons, as well as a volume dial. The volume-dial seems practically identical to that of the X5 3rd gen and X7 Mark II, although it does feel a bit more sturdy than the one on the X5 3rd Gen in terms of how much lateral play it has. There’s still a bit of wiggle here, but the actual “clicks” do feel more solid and tactile. Interestingly, those playback buttons once again draw a stark resemblance to those found on the AK120 Mark II and AK100 Mark II.

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The top edge is where we find the power button and 3.5mm headphone jack. The power button has the same design as the ones found on the X5 3rd gen and X7 Mark II, but just has a smaller diameter. We still get the LED in the centre to show the charging and power status of the device. The left-hand side houses nothing more than the microSD card slot, whereas the bottom edge is also reserved only for the USB Type-C connector. This is the first time that FiiO has incorporated a Type-C connector in any of their device, and so I assume that this will be the new standard for them going forth.
Of course this does mean that their current line of docks like the K5 and DK1 are not compatible with the M7, so it’ll be interesting to see what new accessories and docks FiiO will release for the updated USB connection.

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Admittedly the design of the M7 can take some getting used to as I found myself on numerous occasions picking the device up upside-down due to the unconventional placement of the display.  Perhaps what also contributed to these moments of confusion is the fact that the headphone jack is also located along the top. This is by no means a deal breaker, of course, but just be aware that there might be a bit of a learning curve involved.  

But, overall, I think FiiO did a really fine job. The M7 definitely does not feel at all “cheap” or flimsy to me. Personally I would’ve liked to see just a bit more of a design flair like we’ve seen on the X5 3rd Gen and X7 Mark II, but again, the more understated looks of the M7 is not what I would consider to be a deal-breaker.

My main concern with regards to the design is the position of the volume dial when we consider how it might affect the ability to stack the M7 to an external AMP or DAC. If we were to use the regular ol’ rubber band technique, then this might put unwanted stress onto the volume dial.

User Interface

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, to a very large extent the UI can make or break a user’s experience with the device, and in the case of FiiO I’ve been extremely critical of their seemingly “sell now, fix later” attitude. But, I’m also a big believer in giving credit where credit is due, and when it comes to the M7, FiiO is well deserving of a pat on the back.
Their previous devices often had such glaringly obvious flaws that it honestly often left me wondering if anybody actually tests the UI before they ship the units out. So really, with the M7, I’m seeing a massive leap forward.

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Firstly, let’s deal with the look of the UI. Whilst the M7 runs a flavour of Android much like any of their other Android-based players, the difference here is that FiiO have gone to great lengths to strip and slim it down to only the bare essentials.In essence, what we are getting is a UI that operates very similarly to what you’d find on an Astell&Kern player. It’s clean, minimal, and focused – something that’s entirely appropriate for a dedicated portable music player.

Starting off on the home screen, we have 6 main options to choose from, namely FiiO Music, FM Radio, File Management, Gallery, Technical Support, and Settings.
File Management is simply a file explorer type of app that’ll allow you to create folders, or move, delete, or copy files on either the internal or external storage.
The Technical Support app is similar to what we’ve seen on FiiO’s other Android-based players, and this is where you’ll be able to execute firmware upgrades, in addition to having access to a quick start guide and a couple of FAQs.
With regards to the firmware upgrade, it should be noted that all upgrade are to be done locally, meaning there is no option of OTA updates, and this is purely because the M7 does not have WiFi capability. This leads us partly to what is perhaps the only real downside to the software on the M7.

fiio-m7-music launcher

Due to this slimmed and trimmed Android OS, you cannot install any 3rd party apps. This aspect will, unfortunately, be a deal breaker for a number of people as I know there are specific music apps that many people would prefer to use over FiiO’s own music app. But, I really should add that the FiiO music app that’s on the M7 is a bit different to the one that’s found on the X5 3rd Gen and X7 Mark II. They obviously do share numerous similarities, but the one found on the M7 feels to me to be a bit more refined, and it looks and feels more closely related to the iOS version of the FiiO music app. However, if we combine the inability to install 3rd party apps, along with a lack of WiFi, this means that there’s no possibility of being able to use streaming services like Tidal or Spotify. This too will unfortunately be another deal-breaker for many people.

Another unfortunate re-occurrence comes in the form of replay gain, or rather the lack there of. I don’t quite understand why FiiO keeps omitting this feature despite the fact that it’s one that repeatedly gets asked for in the forums. This isn’t anything hardware related, all that is needed is for FiiO to code it into their software. So exactly why they still haven’t included this feature..well, your guess is as good as mine I suppose.

But, if you don’t particularly care for replay gain, streaming services, nor have any specific preference to which music app you want to use, then the slimmed and focused UI approach on the M7 is great.
The thing I keep coming back to is that, whilst the M7 isn’t perhaps as feature-rich as I would’ve liked to see, the maturity of the UI is the best I’ve seen so far from FiiO.

There’s only one instance that I managed to repeatedly crash the system, and that’s when I inserted a 200GB Sandisk card. The problem here was that the M7 didn’t like the FAT32 format that I had the card in. So, I simply copied all the music off of the card, then reformatted ii an exFAT format, and copied the music back on. Since changing the format of the card I’ve had no crashes.
While we’re on the topic of external storage, I’ve got to admit that I was surprised by the speed with which the M7 was able to scan that 200GB card and create the music library. It took just over 3 minutes and 20 seconds for the device to scan through about 6900 tracks, which puts it on par with my own Shanling M2s. That’s around 20% or so faster than the X5 3rd Gen and X7 Mark II. I suspect that maybe this increase in speed is not only due to the slimmed-down OS, but perhaps also due to the Exynos processor used, despite the fact that the M7 has less RAM than both the X5 3rd Gen and X7 Mark II.

Is the UI perfect? No. There are a couple of things here and there that I think can be improved upon as well as bugs that I found that need to get fixed, but I honestly have not come across any flaws severe enough for me to even consider the UI to be crippled.
So, let’s have a look at what those flaws are, and perhaps FiiO themselves could refer to this review in terms of identifying flaws and possible improvements to be made.

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fiio-m7-usb-audio
fiio-m7-pinnacle-p1

First up, whilst the UI is overall pretty darn snappy and responsive, there are a few little glitches here and there in terms of scrolling. Sometimes when scrolling through a list you can see that the display is struggling a little to keep up, resulting in a few stutters. I haven’t been able to find any specific workaround for this, but one tip I can give you in terms of speeding up the UI even more than what it is as standard is to employ an age-old Android trick.
If we head over into Settings, General, then About Device, and then tap on Build Number a few times, this will enable Developer Options. Then, when we head on over into Developer Options and we scroll down the list a bit we will find 3 options called Window animation scale, Transition animation scale, and Animator duration scale. If we set all 3 of these options to Animation off this will result in a noticeable improvement in the UI speed. Of course, if you like the eye-candy of animations and transitions, you could opt to simply put it setting at .5x speed, which will still give you a slight improvement.
While we’re in the Developer Options, I should also say that, as standard, FiiO guarantees stable USB audio output only to the Q1 Mark II and Q5, and so if you connect any other external USB audio device it’ll probably not work with the M7. But, in the Developer Options there is also an option called Select USB Configuration, and if you go into that and select Audio, then the M7 will direct the audio to an external device. The odd thing here is that the M7 actually uses more power doing this than if you were to play music on it’s own, giving you only about half the total playback time compared to playing music solely on the M7. So obviously there is some sort of battery draining bug present here, and that’s probably why FiiO hasn’t enabled this function as standard yet. While we are talking about battery-life, we might as well quickly mention the overall battery-life of the device. Testing this out with the Pinnacle P1 as the load at volume level 39 our of 60, and playing a number of 96kHz/24-bit files, I managed to get a total playback time of 16 hours and 37 minutes. Interestingly when doing the same test but outputting the signal to an external amplifier gave only about 5 minutes of extra battery life, which is well within the margin for error as that’s less than a 1% improvement. The battery life might not be as amazing as the claimed 50 hours you could get from the Cowon Plenue D, but compared to FiiO’s other devices it’s still very respectable.

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fiio-m7-folder-view

Getting back to the bugs, another bug I found has to do with the search function. Of course, a search function can be immensely helpful, especially if you’ve got a very large music collection. But, the problem here is that, let’s say I want to search for Eric Clapton. I then head into the search function and start typing in the name. This will then bring up all results that match the phrase that I searched for, including artists names, albums names, and if that search phrase was found in actual track names. So, in my case, the results found when searching for Eric Clapton is the artist’s name and the Eric Clapton Unplugged album. Here the problems comes in when selecting either of those 2 results, as this leads to the device playing all music found under that category, rather than simply going into that category. If I click on the artist name, I then want to see all albums that are listed under that name, and likewise, if I select the album, I want to see the tracks that are contained on that album. I’m not sure if this is in fact a software bug, or if this comes down to this function not having been thought through properly.
Now, while we are looking at these search results, let’s touch on another bug. We can see that, on the far right of each result, there is a little play icon. I presume that the purpose of this icon would be to commence playing of all music associated with that search result.
However, we can also see this same icon throughout all other category and directory lists as well, but it doesn’t always work. If we browse through the music library via tags, i.e via Artist or Album categories, then this works as expected.
But, if we are browsing through within the Folder option (that is to say the way the files are actually stored on the storage medium) then this little play sometimes does not work at all. To illustrate what I mean, let me explain how I store and organise my library on my main music library card.
In the root level of the card I have folders for each artist, and then within each artist folder lies a folder for each album, and then finally within each album folder are the individual tracks as well as the album art image. So, the problem encountered here is that if I’m looking at the artist folders and I click on the little play button, then nothing happens. But, if I go into the artist folder and then click on the play button next to an album folder, then it works as expected. So clearly there’s a bug with reference to dealing with multiple folder hierarchies that needs to be addressed by FiiO.

And then the final bug that I came across has to do with the lock screen. I don’t know about you, but I don’t keep any sensitive information on my music players, and so I don’t particularly care to have a lock screen. I’d much rather not have to swipe or slide anything around on the screen when I press that power button to wake the device up. I want instant access to my music.
Now of course, this is entirely possible on Android, but on the M7, turning off the screen lock seems to only affect the main home screen, and so, as soon as you start playing music, you once again have to deal with a screen lock. Perhaps this isn’t a bug after all, perhaps this is something totally intended by FiiO, but I personally would prefer if the screen lock is turned off entirely when I opt to have no screen lock.

Ok, so those are the bugs dealt with, now let’s have a chat about a specific improvement that I’d like to see.
The only thing that I found a bit frustrating with the UI of the music player app is that there’s no quick way of getting back to the main home screen of the app. FiiO did incorporate swiping gestures for jumping back in lists as well as jumping quickly to the main launcher of the device, but there’s nothing to get you quickly to the home screen of the actual music app. This problem becomes apparent when we consider the fact that all of the settings for the app can only be accessed from the app’s home screen. So what happens is that you’d have to continuously swipe back until you get to the app’s home screen. So, my suggestion here would that FiiO either figures out a way to get users to be able to quickly and easily jump to the app’s home screen, or create a slide down menu for some of the settings like you’d find on regular Android devices.

Connectivity

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One of the standout features of the M7 is its compatibility with numerous Bluetooth formats, including AAC, AptX-HD and Sony’s LDAC format. I’ve got to admit that I was seriously impressed with the stability and range of the Bluetooth signal, especially when compared to their previous devices.
I did face just a few little glitches when connecting it to the Sony WH-1000XM2 via the LDAC format, but this only happened once or twice, and so was solid for the vast majority of the time. In the past I’ve been disappointed each and every time with the Bluetooth performance of FiiO’s previous Bluetooth capable music players, but the M7 has proven to perform really well in this regard. There’s also an indicator in the status bar that shows you which Bluetooth format the M7 is currently using when connected to another device.As far as connectivity is concerned, the only real issue I found has to do with the FM radio. I personally don’t particularly care for this function, but those who do want to use it will likely be quite disappointed with the sound of it. It just doesn’t sound good at all as there’s a fair amount of static present, indicating that this functionality either hasn’t been implemented properly, or there’s some sort of software bug that still needs to be improved upon.

Sound & Comparisons

So finally, let’s talk about the sound quality of the M7 with reference to playing music stored on the internal storage or microSD card.
I once again found that FiiO did a great job in this department. There were no obvious issues that stood out to me and in comparison to not only competing products form other manufacturers, but compared to other product within FiiO’s own lineup it’s clear that the M7’s sound will hardly disappoint anyone who listens to it. The overall character I would describe as being quite neutral, but very natural and organic at the same time. It doesn’t come across as a device that’s trying so hard as to sound artificial by any means.

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M7 vs. X3 Mark III
Whilst the M7 does cost a bit more than the X3 Mark III, both device are attempting to appeal to similar users. The main differences here being that the X3 offers a 2.5mm balanced output, and no touch display interface. Both devices are capable of outputting a digital signal, but the X3 can only do so via a 3.5mm COAX connection, whereas the M7 does so via the Type-C port.
In terms of sound, I must admit that I favour the M7 here. In comparison the X3 sounds a bit brighter, and vocals seem a bit more forward. To some extent the X3 can sometimes come across as sounding slightly more detailed, but that seemingly more forward treble often results in what I can only describe as sounding a bit more artificial, at least when compared to the M7 anyways. The positive of that slightly more forward treble can make the X3 also sound as though it has a slightly wider soundstage, but, overall I still prefer the more neutral and organic character of the M7.
Picking between these two devices will probably mostly come down to your needs in terms of whether or not you need or prefer a balanced connection, as well as the fact that the X3 can deliver up to 4 times the amount of power that the M7 can. If you prefer a slightly brighter sound character and don’t particularly have a preference for a touch interface device, then the X3 could be a good device to look at. However, if Bluetooth performance is important to you, then the M7 easily beats the X3, not just in terms of range, but in terms of available Bluetooth formats as well.

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M7 vs. Shanling M2s
Comparing the sound of these 2 devices proved to be quite interesting because, despite using very different DAC chips, I honestly don’t know if I could tell these 2 apart from one another. On the one hand I want to say that the M2s sometimes comes across as perhaps being just a bit smoother than the M7, but I really could not pick up on anything concrete to distinguish one from the other. Of course on the M2s we do get more than 3 times the available power output, so that could be a significant factor depending on which headphones you prefer to use. As a device, despite being noticeably more bulky, I prefer the touch interface of the M7 over the scroll-wheel interface of the M2s. I’d still regard the M2s as a wonderfully compact source device, but for day to day usage, combined with double the battery-life from the FiiO, the M7 would be my pick for being the better of the two devices. This is also true when considering Bluetooth performance. The Bluetooth on the M2s is pretty good, but again, just like in the case of the X3, the M7 is definitely a step ahead in both range, stability, and with reference to available Bluetooth formats.

M7 vs. X5 3rd gen
This may seem like somewhat of an unfair comparison as the price-tag of the X5 does sit at a little more than $100 above that of the M7, but I would argue that the M7 is the better of the two devices. Sure, the X5 does offer a larger display, dual card slots, WiFi connectivity, 3rd party app support, a balanced output, and up to 6 times more power on tap than what you’d get on the M7; but if you have no real need for any of those features, the M7 feels like a much more complete device in terms of the design and responsiveness of the UI. Bluetooth connectivity is also again in favour of the M7, but so is the sound quality.
I’ve not been a fan of the sound of the X5, as to me it comes across as being a bit too soft and undefined. It’s subtle, but every time  compare it to other devices that’s what I pick up on, and I again found this to be true in comparison to the M7. No matter which music I was listening to, the M7 just came across as being more competent, retrieving details with better definition, and so allowing for a greater sense of instrument separation.
Once again, if those extra bells and whistles of the X5 don’t appeal to you, the cheaper price-point and overall better executed device that is the M7 would be my pick.

Value

Overall, the value of the M7 is this – I strongly feel that it marks a turning-point for FiiO. The fact that they’ve done such a good job with the software, the Bluetooth connectivity, and with the sound gives me an immense sense of hope and excitement for their future devices.
The M7 is by no means a perfect device, but taking into account what it was designed to be, I honestly do consider it to be the best complete device to have left the FiiO factory. Of course, we would always like to see a bit more bells and whistles, and what will turn many people away from the device is perhaps the lack of power along with zero possibility of integrating with streaming services. But again, if you don’t care for streaming services, then the M7 could make complete sense to you. Where this lack of power will come into play would only really be with full-sized headphones. The 40mW available at a 32-ohm load might not seem like much, but it’s still way more than what you’d need for the vast majority of IEMs out there. Heck, even the Pinnacle P1 which is somewhat notoriously power-hungry is still driven perfectly by the M7 with plenty of room to spare.
So, once again, kudos to FiiO for the great job on the software, and I hope they’ll make a note of the bugs I listed as well as some of the possible improvements.