Product Comparison: Fiio X5-II vs Fiio X3-II

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Best Pick

Fiio X5-II (2nd Generation) High Resolution Music Player (Black)

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Fiio X3-II High Resolution Music Player (Black)

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General Specifications

Brand

Fiio

Model

X5-II

X3-II

About the Product

All new X5 2nd gen - native DSD decoding, more musical, more portable. One small step in your eyes, one giant leap for your ears.

The black X3 (2nd Gen) from Fiio is a portable high resolution audio player and USB-DAC for audio enthusiasts.

Key Specs

Memory

0 GB

Display

Yes

Integrated Speaker(s)

What customers say about "Key Specs"

Fiio X5-II (2nd Generation) High Resolution Music Player (Black)

Love how smooth the interface is, the display is clear, crisp, and easy to read.
The screen has nice color reproduction, good for those of you that love album art.
The large artwork screen.
The menus are sharp on the display.
The slight delay between displaying the artist list and the albums is shorter if you have a huge selection, thus saving on battery life a bit.
The display is small and uses a tiny font.

Fiio X3-II High Resolution Music Player (Black)

I also don't like the way it displays my files.
I love the way it shows me my screen art - as I've taken the time to tag and put in screen art for nearly all of my collection .
The font size is very small and hard to read. I ended up picking the theme with the best contrast so I could read the menus. Still, with less than good eyesight I can barely read the display.
The UI could be a bit more convenient and the display is not as great.
The display is fine indoors, but a little hard to read outdoors.
The screen isn't bright enough. And its small, so its almost impossible for me to read in daylight, forget while driving

Size & Weight

Color

Black

Height

4.3 in.

3.8 in.

Width

2.5 in.

2.3 in.

Depth

0.6 in.

Weight

5.8 oz.

4.8 oz.

What customers say about "Size & Weight"

Fiio X5-II (2nd Generation) High Resolution Music Player (Black)

The build seems to be quality and I like the size/ weight.
Nothing compares to the quality of sound that comes out of this little machine, for its size and price.
It looks very similar to an iPod, to be honest, and the weight and size are also comparable.
it's beautiful, like all the other Fiio products I own. It's smaller and lighter than the Gen I, you can actually carry in jeans pocket.
I felt as if it were sturdy by the weight of it.

Fiio X3-II High Resolution Music Player (Black)

Small and compact for his pocket w/out dropping out or loosing it either.
It is very compact, but the sound quality is excellent.
All aluminum case, good size in the hand, screen is easy to read and back-lit.
The size of the unit is very nice for dropping in your pocket.
Minuses are a less than ideal interface and it is quite heavy for it's small size.

Features

Supported Audio Formats

AAC, Protected AAC, HE-AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Lossy Files, PCM, DSD, WAV

AAC, Protected AAC, HE-AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, WAV, Linear PCM, Ogg Vorbis, PCM, DSD, Lossy Files

Memory Card Slot

Yes

Input(s)

3.5mm Jack

Voice Recorder

Video Playback

Bluetooth Enabled

Yes

Extras

Top shelf PCM1792A from Texas Instrument coupled with new OPA1652 gives great dynamic performance

Supports up to 24-Bit / 192 kHz

What customers say about "Features"

Fiio X5-II (2nd Generation) High Resolution Music Player (Black)

A nice feature between the two memory cards is you can create on-the go playlists that combine data from both cards.
The use of removable memory cards that can be directly managed is very convenient, since I personally do not like to have to use software like iTunes to manage my files.
My favorite thing though is simply the versatility of file formats you can use, you aren't limited to the usual formats but you can use the FLAC format.
I like that this fiio device has 2 sd card slots cause I have loads of metal music in my collection and need extra storage space for it but I was hoping for better battery life it's not terrible but doesn't seem to be great either!
Difficult to use: The menus are very slow once you get into the 100 GB range. If you're using the "Categories" section, expect 15-30 seconds delays after choosing an option. To speed things up, I use the folders section since I already organized my folders by artist/album.
Great but it does take getting used to , some controls are a bit odd but over all great expandability and sound.

Fiio X3-II High Resolution Music Player (Black)

You can have as much memory cards as you want, which makes your storage space virtually infinite.
You can use this as a beautiful sounding Hi res audio player with natural slightly warm neutral sound as well as a DAC to listen to your music on you computer with much better quality.
However, in addition to purchasing the MP3 player you have to purchase a memory card and a device to format the memory card.
User interface is horrible. Selecting genre, artist or album is very complicated.
Making internal playlists is borderline impossible, and importing playlists is very complicated.
Excellent player, a little tricky getting the software figured out, but when you do it is well worth it.

Power

Battery Life

10 hours

Battery Life

Fiio X5-II

Fiio X3-II

What customers say about "Power"

Fiio X5-II (2nd Generation) High Resolution Music Player (Black)

Plenty of space availability, and the battery life is great!
It takes three hours to charge and I clocked battery life at approximately eleven hours.
The battery life is specified at 10+ hours, which is conservative as I get 11 to 12 hours from its 3300 mAh battery, more if I'm using the Line output which powers off the headphone amp.
Terrible battery life, cumbersome to browse through files.
No indicator which says battery is fully charged.

Fiio X3-II High Resolution Music Player (Black)

Battery life seems really good.
Battery life is acceptable.
Battery life is fine, more than four hours of continuous use.
I think that at this price point along with the size of this unit that the battery oughta' last longer.
With mediocre battery life. I'd say 6-8 hours that degrades to 6 hours after wearing it in for a few months.

Warranty / Certifications

Certifications

FCC, CE