FiiO is a Chinese company established in 2007 that
manufactures audio equipment. It is best known for its portable HiFi music
players but also makes amplifiers, earphones, and DACs. Its latest Hi-Fi audio
player is the FiiO M7 and it is powered by Samsung’s Exynos 7270 processor.
One of Samsung’s aim for this year is to get its
Exynos chipsets into more devices and it appears phones are not the only
devices it has in mind. The 14nm Exynos 7270 belongs to the Exynos 7 Dual
series and is an example of Samsung’s SiP-ePoP (Sip: System-in-Package, ePoP:
embedded Package on Package).
What this means is that the processor also includes
the memory DRAM and eMMC and power management IC. All these are crammed into a
10 x 10mm frame with a 30% reduction in size and 20% more power efficiency over
previous generation chips. The processor was actually designed for smartwatches
so as to provide longer life without increasing the battery capacity and making
the watch thicker. Now it has found its way into an audio player.
The FiiO M7 has a 3.2” 480 x 800 display. The
processor is clocked at 1.0GHz with 2GB of storage. There is a microSD
expansion slot that lets you add an extra 512GB of storage. The audio player
has a ES9018Q2C DAC, LDAC, and has support for DSD audio. It also has FM radio
and USB audio support. For connectivity, there is a USB-C port and Bluetooth
4.2 (aptX and aptX-HD).
There is no mention of the battery capacity but FiiO
says the M7 can last 20 hours on a single charge and 40 days on standby. It appears
the Fiio M7 has not been officially launched as there is no pricing and
availability info at the moment.
