Hidizs AP80 Pro Review – Compact Power
Hidizs AP80 Pro
$169.99
Pros
- Very compact and portable
- Musical natural sound signature
- Balanced and single ended ports supported. Powerful for it's size.
Cons
- Main UI icons feel a little dated.
- Volume dial difficult to use at times.
We have now spent some time with the latest Hidizs AP80 PRO portable audio player.
The team at earphonia.com have been aware of Hidizs from their early days and their successful crowd funding ventures.
If you are interested in finding out more about their interesting journey check out this article.
Lets see if the impressive specifications below are done justice by this compact elegant looking pocket sized DAP.
Specifications/Features:
Unboxing/Build Quality/Accessories:
We have produced an unboxing video on our IGTV feed to show you exactly what you get and how this DAP looks and operates.
You can see from the video the player has an elegant design and is quite compact and should be able to fit in the smallest of pockets.
The build quality finish is precise and solid, buttons are strong and give good firm resistance.
Placed intuitively, the main operation buttons play/pause, next/previous buttons work well and can be used one handed without sight if needed.
The volume dial however is not the easiest to use, as it is recessed and means that to change volume one handed requires quite a bit of practice.
I would have preferred that this button would have been slightly larger with a more pronounce grip design.
The IPS screen has HD resolution but due to its size, depending on your finger size, some selections may take a few taps to activate as the area for selection is very precise on some of the screens, but for most of the time it does respond as expected.
Supporting both Single Ended 3.5mm ports and balanced 2.5 mm ports as well as the Type C data port, the AP80 Pro certainly packs a lot into such a small player size.
Enclosure machining around the ports and overall build is of a high standard, with a slick looking design aesthetic.
Packed into this small player is dual set of ES9218P DAC chips, providing a very natural sound signature.
Looking at the sides, they are machined with elegant looking design angles, making sure that the player is visually appealing and a visual pleasure when viewing at different perspectives.
The volume calibration has very incremental changes, so takes a lot of spinning to raise the sound levels and I opted to use the touchscreen for changing volume.
The player also has a silicon type protective case, shown in the unboxing video. I don’t see myself using this much but may be useful for buyers out there looking to protect their player.
The AP80 Pro is available in a number colours, (see below) and possibly a limited edition Copper or Stainless Steel versions (To be confirmed), as Hidizs have done with their other audio players.
The micro SD card slot seems to be quite difficult to use as the sd card has to slot in quite deeply, I was unable to insert cards or release them using my hands and had to use of a paperclip to press/release the cards.
This is a little frustrating but is does support up to 512GB micro SD card so shouldn’t need changing that often.
Charging takes around 1 hour and the player can play continuously for around 8 to 10 Hours, so for heavy users this will require daily charging.
The audio output is very powerful, able to drive full size Headphones as well as power demanding IEMs.
2.5mm balanced output delivers slightly more power than the 3.5 Single ended output but both are impressive.
In between the 2 jack ports, there is a TYPE-C USB port that can be used for charging, data transfer and for USB DAC functions. This port supports Bidirectional USB.
A Type C Cable and Type-C to USB Micro cable is included along with a screen protector.
I am a fan of the overall build quality, design and compact nature of the AP80 Pro.
