Fiio has become our favorite budget audiophile brand, thanks to products like the Fiio FT13 headphones, the Fiio BTR17 DAC/amplifier, and the Fiio JM21 music player.
It’s the latter that’s most relevant here, because Fiio sub-brand Snowsky has just introduced a new super-cheap hi-res music player that looks like a cross between a sixth-generation iPod nano and a MiniDisc player, and costs just $80/£80.
Despite its small size and price, there is some great technology here. It promises around 12 hours of battery life and you control it via the touchscreen on the front.
There’s a dual DAC architecture (Fiio hasn’t mentioned what the DAC is yet, but we’ve asked for more information), Wi-Fi including Apple AirPlay support, a 3.5mm port with SPDIF, a 4.4mm balanced output, USB-C audio output, higher-resolution Bluetooth LDAC, and, perhaps most importantly, a microSD card slot for storage that lets you take up to 2TB of music files on the go.
That will be especially easy because it’s so small – Fiio hasn’t said exactly how small yet (again, I looked for information). Still, I’ve done some very Scientific USB-C port size comparisons in the images, and the Snowsky Disc appears to be basically the same width as my iPhone 16 Pro, and a bit thicker.
That will make it about 72mm or 2.8 inches wide and tall, between the 6th generation iPod nano I mentioned earlier and an iPod mini. In fact, that’s basically the size of a MiniDisc.
I love the way it looks and if it sounds good, it could easily become the new budget option in our guide to the best MP3 players.
Fiio has shown three colors so far (black, turquoise, and pink) and will go on sale in January. It’s a shame – it would have made the perfect last-minute Christmas gift if it were available now, although you can always look for Snowsky’s cassette-inspired Echo Mini MP3 player if you want something like this.
The best music players for all budgets.
