XUELIN IHIFI770C Portable HiFi Music Player Black

The unit comes packaged well, and attractively. It also comes fully charged. However, it comes with Chinese language as the default on power up, so without any guidance, you pretty much will fumble through trial and error several different menus and options before you come across the one that changes the language - once you do, good to go, but it was tedious getting to that point. If you understand Chinese - no problem. The unit details state it will accept a microSD card, up to 128GB. I purchased a new Sandisk 64GB card, but it would not work. It won't work, unless you reformat the card to FAT32, which can easily be done with free software found on-line. Once I reformatted the SD card, it worked fine. Menuing is somewhat tedious and user interface is nothing too exciting, but you are there to listen to music. You can change the power output to beef up the sound output, which is the mode I prefer to listen in, but it eats battery pretty fast. For example, the battery from a fresh charge didn't last through a 3-1/2 hour flight. This has happened more than once, so batter life is a bit disappointing. It does have a quality Wolfson chip, even if it is not the most current technology Wolfson chip, but it is a good one. Music is crisp and clear, and I prefer the sound in the standard settings. In the standard mode, the bass is decent but not "booming". I listen to this player with V-MODA LP closed back headphones and also MEE Audio M6 Pro in ear monitors, and the sound from the Xuelin through both is nice and neutral. I do like the player, it seems well put together, I like the fact it will take up to 128GB, but it is a disappointment that the SD card must be reformatted first, and there are no indications on the packaging that lead you to this conclusion (rather a lot of time researching the web looking for a solution), and the fact that for as big as the unit is, the battery life is not that great.

4 stars only for the battery

This is one great player. Now that it's ported for RockBox it has a operating system to match. RockBoxed it yesterday and I can't tell you how much better it made it. Everything that was missing is now there 10 times over. There is so many controls for the sound it's incredible. I now have album art also. With RockBox there isn't a DAC under $300 that matches it.

Great price for the hardware. If you're going to RockBox it, good.The case is not nearly as beefy as they make it sound in all the literature. I've dropped it a couple times and the back plate is all rattle-y in the aluminum sidewall.The stock firmware sucks. Many people will die in car and bike accidents. Gratuitously bad. You can't put the screen to sleep - you will repeatedly turn off your device on accident until you learn this. No tags, just directory structure. DOES NOT PLAY HIGH-BITRATE FLAC!!! REPEAT!!! All noise on files > 24bit X 44KHz. I hope you're not the kind of "audiophile" who has FLAC... Max volume isn't that loud, and I'm not a high-volume listener.I have not yet rockBoxed it, which is what I intended all along, I will update with my experience. BEWARE, though, it's well-known that rockBox introduces operating noise which the stock firmware does not have.