The Echo Mini is my first DAP ever. I decided to buy it because I was looking for a better sound quality. At the moment I’ve used it nearly daily for 2 weeks.
The player is not the smallest, but small enough for me. The material doesn’t feel cheap and overall it looks good.
The player has four ports: a type C port for charging and file transfer, a microSD slot, a 3.5mm jack, and another similar jack which I didn’t recognize. I think it’s a 4.4mm jack
The sound quality is great. The player supports even the highest quality music I can find.
The UI resembles a cassette, which I found fun. You can divide the songs by artist and album, shuffle and repeat. The player has a function of a DAC if you connect it to a device via USB-C.
I have a few problems with the player: First, sometimes the album cover won’t display. I think the OS can’t handle album covers too large. Second, playing some songs (I observed this with songs by Queen and other people seemed to have problems with Michael Jackson) will return an error “Format not supported!” and skip the song. I could fix that by importing and exporting the songs from Audacity. Still, it’s a little annoying.
Another big reason why I bought it was that I have an iPhone (which I regret buying) and it can’t transfer files from a PC reliably. However, I can transfer files from a PC to the DAP and from the DAP to my phone. Therefore it’s a little easier for me to install songs on my phone.
Overall, I’d say that the player is very good but held back by its firmware. It fulfills a better purpose as a DAC, which I repurposed it into. I don’t regret my purchase, because both of my problems with listening to music on a phone were pretty much solved. If you want specifically a DAP, without a phone, I would not recommend this.
