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If there’s a stone FiiO has left unturned in the way it’s specified and built the M27 digital audio player, it’s invisible.
This is a portable(ish) music player for which the word ‘uncompromised’ is almost an understatement. Specification is thorough to the point of exhaustion. Twin ESS Sabre DACS with 32bit/768kHz and DSD512 compatibility, aptX Lossless and LDAC for Bluetooth, balanced and unbalanced analogue outputs, a super-slick Android 13 operating experience, a whole host of modes that allow the M27 to work as a USB DAC, a digital transport, a desktop system host and more besides… the list goes on.
So if you want a player (a big and heavy player, let’s be honest) with enough power to drive even the trickiest of headphones, with battery life that’s approaching ‘epic’, and that arrives with its own little desktop charging stand with integrated cooling fan, you’ve come to the right place.
All of this would count for very little, though, if the FiiO M27 didn’t have it where it really counts. Happily, this is a great-sounding machine – or, at least, it is if you treat it respectfully. Hi-res stuff enjoys amazing detail resolution, expansive soundstaging, sky-high dynamic response and the sort of singularity of presentation that makes every listen an event. Lower-resolution stuff, though, is basically exposed to ridicule. So don’t imagine the M27 is about to flatter your choices if your choices are incorrect…
Among the best MP3 players on the market then? Oh, without a doubt.
(Image credit: Simon Lucas / Future) FiiO M27 review: Price and release dateThe FiiO M27 launched in the middle of November 2025, and in the United Kingdom it’s priced at £1,499. In the United States it sells for $1,799, while in Australia you’re looking at AU$2,699.
And just because it’s possible to pay plenty more than this for a premium digital audio player, that doesn’t mean the M27 hangs out anywhere near the ‘affordable’ category…
(Image credit: Simon Lucas / Future)FiiO M27 review: FeaturesFiiO never knowingly underspecifies its products – so when it’s going all-out to create a class-leading, market-defining digital audio player, it follows that the feature-count here is significant.
For the M27, FiiO has leaned heavily on Qualcomm’s expertise. The machine features the company’s QCS6490 chipset with Snapdragon 770G architecture. Along with eight (count ‘em!) Kryo 670 cores and an Adrena 642L GPU, this arrangement promises lightning-fast response times, effortless multitasking and a solid foundation for streaming and playback no matter the size or type of the digital audio file the player is dealing with.
Qualcomm’s QCC5181 chipset makes an appearance too. It facilitates Bluetooth 5.4 wireless connectivity when the M27 is acting as a receiver, and allows for aptX Lossless and LDAC codec compatibility as well as Auracast and Bluetooth LE Audio. The FiiO will also function as a Bluetooth transmitter – in this direction it’s running Bluetooth 5.2 with support for aptX Adaptive and LDAC.
There’s more. Qualcomm’s Dragonwing AI platform, allows the M27 to offer a 31-band PEQ at resolutions up to 32bit/384kHz (among other things), global ‘All to DSD’ functionality for bitrates from DSD64 to DSD256, and fully controllable end-to-end audio processing.
The crucial business of digital-to-analogue conversion is taken care of by a couple of ESS Sabre ES9039 PRO chipsets that are good to go with resolutions of up to 32bit/768kHz PCM and DSD512. They’re supported by sixth (and latest) generation of FiiO’s ‘Digital Audio Purification System’, which deploys a new FPGA and dual RIVER femtosecond crystal oscillators in a drive for vanishingly low jitter and optimal timing accuracy.
The M27 features a replaceable 9200mAh battery, which is a) good news where product longevity is concerned, and b) a massive amount of power. It translates to eight hours of playback via a balanced output or a touch over nine from an unbalanced alternative – and it also allows for power outputs big enough to drive even the most truculent headphones. And on the subject of big power outputs, if you connect the M27 to mains power via a fast charger and select ‘Ultra High Gain’ mode, a giddy 10,000mW of power is available.
Naturally the list goes on (and on). The M27 features a six-stage fully differential audio circuit – it doubles up on the high-quality components like signal relays, volume control chips and TI op-amps in order to independently process each channel of audio information, and then drives them via discrete power supplies. It has a high-current, low-loss, MOSFET-managed power path with big energy storage capacitors; it has copper heatsinks; it has a graphite vapour chamber and graphene thermal conduction pads integrated into the chassis to enable effective cooling.
And it has more besides. But for the sake of brevity, it’s probably enough to know that FiiO has left nothing – by which I mean nothing – to chance where the specification of the M27 is concerned.
Features score: 5 / 5
(Image credit: Simon Lucas / Future)FiiO M27 review: Sound qualityI’m guessing that anyone who’s thinking of dropping this sort of money on a digital audio player is well served for properly high-resolution digital audio content. I certainly hope so – because while the way the M27 handles hi-res stuff is thoroughly enjoyable and deeply impressive, it’s got next-to-no time for stuff that dips below the magic 16bit/44.1kHz point.
So while a 24bit/192kHz file of David Bowie’s Low (which has somehow just had its 50th birthday) is delivered in the most eloquent, revealing and utterly engaging manner, the same content streamed as a 320kbps file via Spotify sounds almost as if the M27 is taking it personally.
Big files are lavishly detailed, arranged on a large and convincingly defined soundstage, and are laid out with considerable ‘left/right’ distance available and quite a lot of ‘front/back’ too. The spaces between elements of the recording are carefully observed, and even if the music involves few participants on this very big stage there’s a tangible sense of ‘togetherness’ about the way the FiiO presents it. The unity of its delivery makes for a confident and believable overall performance.
(Image credit: Simon Lucas / Future)It’s possible to fiddle with the sonic characteristics of the M27 quite extensively, of course - but leave well enough alone and the player has a neutral, uncoloured tonality that makes for a naturalistic presentation. The attention to detail it exhibits means texture and timbre of instruments and of voices are made apparent, and the low-level dynamic variations or harmonic under- and overtones are made apparent every time.
Frequency response, too, is convincing – from the deep, hard-hitting and endless varied bottom end to the bright, attacking top, the FiiO gives every area fair weighting and representation. And in the midrange, it communicates in the most direct and unequivocal manner – if there’s even a transient, minor detail concerning tone, technique, attitude or character in a voice, you can be sure the M27 is handing it over.
Those low frequencies are beautifully shaped and their attack and decay is observed in the hawk-like manner. As a result, rhythmic expression is almost casually correct and momentum levels are always appropriate to the material. Add in apparently limitless dynamic headroom and the full account of big shifts in volume or intensity that results, and the M27 goes quite a distance towards the accolade of ‘best pound-for-pound digital audio player on the market’ it craves.
Lower the tone, though, and cue up some lower-resolution content and the FiiO can’t really disguise its disdain. It’s a bit like watching Lewis Hamilton drive a bog-standard hatchback around a racing track: he’ll wring the maximum out of it, but at the same time he’s got one hand on the wheel, he’s checking his look in the rear-view mirror… it’s too easy.
Give the M27 a stream from Spotify’s free tier and it quite ruthlessly exposes the compression and its knock-on effects where dynamics, detail levels, harmonic accuracy and all the rest of it are concerned. You might be thinking 'Well, it would, no?' but honestly some players try to make the best of this sort of content. The FiiO M27 is simply not one of those players.
Sound quality score: 4.5 / 5
(Image credit: Simon Lucas / Future)FiiO M27 review: DesignUntil you see and hold it, the fact the M27 measures 157 x 85 x 28mm (HxWxD) and weighs somewhere between 550g and 630g (depending on your choice of chassis material – aluminium alloy or titanium are available) might seem a little abstract.
And then you see it and hold it, and you realise the FiiO is not ‘portable’ in the way lots of less expensive digital audio players are ‘portable’. This is a hefty unit, and the shirt pocket that’s strong enough to accommodate it has yet to be invented. Think of it in terms of ‘small desktop device’ rather than ‘pocket-friendly go-anywhere player’ and you won’t be far wrong.
Mind you, FiiO has gone to considerable lengths to make sure the look and feel also says ‘premium’ as much as it says ‘chunky’. The industrial design is interesting – angular and pointy but not threateningly so – and the choice of metals for the chassis (titanium or aluminium alloy) is a nice touch too. The front of the M27 is basically all Gorilla Glass-covered 6in 1080p touchscreen display, and the rear panel is a marble-effect slice of glass fibre. FiiO supplies a snug-fitting real leather case to help keep your M27 in tip-top condition. No mention is made of a vegetarian option.
Build quality is unarguable – the FiiO feels solid and made to last. The asking price insists on a certain standard of finish, of course, and it’s a standard the M27 comfortably surpasses.
Design score: 5 / 5
(Image credit: Simon Lucas / Future)FiiO M27 review: Usability and setupAccessing the full and exhaustive list of functions and options available to the M27 user can be done via the touchscreen. The FiiO is running an almost complete version of Android 13 as on operating system, and it’s just as swift and responsive to use as the prodigious processing power promises.
There are also a selection of physical controls, though, along with a comprehensive suite of inputs and outputs. On the upper edge of the chassis there’s a big turn/press dial dealing with power on/off and volume control. There are three analogue outputs/headphone sockets up here, too: 3.5mm and 6.3mm balanced connections with a 4.4mm balanced alternative inbetween. On the bottom there’s space for a full-size Toslink digital optical output, a coaxial on an RCA socket (it can function as either an in- or an output), two microSD card slots (each of which can accept cards of up to 2TB capacity), a ’hold’ switch to disable all physical and touch-controls, a switch to turn ‘desktop mode’ on or off, and three USB-C slots. One is for either charging the battery, or powering the M27 from the mains. One is for charging and also for data transfer. The third, which is designated ‘USB HOST’, allows connection to an external DAC if you wish to use your player as a digital transport.
‘Desktop mode’, by the way, bypasses the battery entirely when the M27 is connected to mains power, which obviously has benefits for the life of the battery. The other functionality modes are ‘Android’ (which allows access to third-party streaming apps), ‘Pure Music’ (only the FiiO Music app is available), ‘USB DAC’ (so the player can act as a soundcard for external devices), ‘AirPlay’ (no explanation necessary) ,‘Bluetooth Receiving’ (which turns the M27 into a Bluetooth amplifier), and ‘Coaxial Decoding’ (which allows digital information incoming via the coaxial socket to access the FiiO’s D-to-A circuitry). Something for everyone, I think we can agree.
On the left side of the player you’ll find a few physical control buttons: skip forwards, skip backwards, play/pause and a user-definable ‘multifunction’ control. On the right there’s a fairly large patch behind which the FiiO stores its wireless antennae. And on both sides there’s an area for some completely gratuitous lighting effects.
The M27 is supplied with a neat desktop charging stand with its own line-up of USB-C connections as well as an integrated fan to keep the M27 cool. The protective leather case features a stainless steel hollow-cut panel on its rear, backed by a gel pack, in a further effort to make sure the player runs cool.
Usability and setup score: 5 / 5
(Image credit: Simon Lucas / Future)FiiO M27 review: ValueFundamentally, the M27 doesn’t do anything that a less affordable digital audio player (not least from the FiiO catalogue) can’t do. But that’s slightly besides the point: the M27 is not only a fine-sounding player with a stack of wider functionality where desktop and full-system use are concerned, but it’s a quite luxurious accessory in the manner of some nice jewellery or a handmade pair of shoes.
If you’re a hard-nosed, clear-eyed consumer than you’ll struggle to make a case for the M27 – but if you value the intangibles as much as, well, the tangibles, there’s an awful lot to like (and to covet, quite frankly) about this FiiO machine.
Value score: 5 / 5
(Image credit: Simon Lucas / Future)Should I buy the FiiO M27? Buy it if...You’re after an uncompromised hi-res audio experience
The M27 can handle dizzily high resolutions and deliver them either digitally or via a selection of analogue outputs
You own a lot of digital audio content
The ability to up the storage here by as much as 4TB means you should never find yourself short of memory
You like nice things
It’s hard to quantify ‘pride of ownership’ but you know it when you feel it
You think ‘value for money’ is a live consideration
FiiO itself can offer a huge proportion of the M27’s talents from devices costing considerably less than this
You have a strong idea of what ‘portable’ means
Yes, you can carry the M27 from one place to another easily enough - but don’t imagine it’s going to slip into the back pocket of your jeans
You’re vegetarian
There’s no alternative to the real leather case FiiO supplies – the M27 arrives with it pre-fitted, just to really drive home the point…View Deal
Astell & Kern A&ultima SP3000T
You’ve come this far, so you may as well go the whole hog; I reviewed the Astell & Kern A&ultima SP3000 for the website a couple of years ago, and it remains an extraordinarily capable device that’s a match for the FiiO M27 in every way. Well, in every way in sonic terms, anyway – FiiO has, not for the first time, managed to undercut its most obvious rival where price is concerned, and as a result your choice of ‘extraordinary digital audio player’ is not as cut-and-dried as it once was.
See my Astell & Kern A&ultima SP3000T review
I downloaded Qobuz and Tidal streaming service apps from the Google Play store, and slotted a 512GB SanDisk microSD card (filled with hi-res audio content) into one of the two microSD card slots.
I connected the player to wired and wireless headphones of appropriate quality (the Sennheiser IE900 on a 4.4mm balanced connection proved particularly sympathetic), and I also used it as a desktop DAC. And then I listened to lots of different types of music, stored in many different formats and at a variety of resolutions.
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KYY is a Chinese hardware maker specialising in portable displays, and the X90E is one of its latest releases.
Described by the makers as a ‘triple laptop screen extender’, more accurately, this is two monitors in a single package, designed to provide three times the normal screen space when used in conjunction with the monitor that the laptop already has.
Its hinged structure places a 15.6-inch 1080p display to the left and the right of the laptop, and connects via a single USB cable.
It can be configured to mirror the contents, so others can see your laptop display from different viewpoints, or provide an extended desktop.
Power can be sourced directly from the laptop, or for extended use, a small USB-C power supply is included.
The obvious limitation of this platform is that it assumes the laptop has USB-C with an ALT-DP capability or Thunderbolt 3 or 4. And, according to KYY, its designed exclusively for Windows PCs, and doesn’t work with Apple MacBook hardware.
At a little over $300 from the makers, and weighing 2.2kg, any purchaser needs to be convinced that the price and the additional carry are worth it for their productivity.
Despite a few limitations at this price point, it’s an obvious candidate for one of the best portable monitors on a budget that we’ve reviewed.
KYY X90E Portable Monitor: Price and availability(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)As with previous KYY products, buying directly from the maker isn’t the cheapest way to get the K3 portable monitor. It's selling for $309.99 direct from KYY.
On Amazon.com, it can be found for a standard price of $239.99 - a 20% discount on its official $299.99 list price.
However, on Amazon.co.uk, the same hardware is £229.99, making it slightly more costly to those in the UK. KYY doesn’t sell on the French or German versions of Amazon, but it should be possible to find it in Europe from another online reseller.
Those looking for this hardware should be aware that KYY also makes the X90A and X90D models with different specifications, so make sure you have the X90E variant before clicking the 'buy' button.
Moving away from the KYY brand, there is a collection of remarkably similar products from other Chinese display makers, and some are more expensive, and others slightly cheaper.
Those willing to use 14-inch displays instead of the 15.6-inch displays the X90E offers can be under $200, and ones with three extra displays (making four in total) can be nearer $450.
At the Amazon.com price, this is not a major investment, even if it’s only used sparingly, placing the KYY X90E in the affordable category.
Model:
Z90E
Screen Size:
2x 15.6-inch corner to corner
Resolution:
1920 x 1080
Compatibility:
TB4, TB3, USB 4.0, USB-C
Number of Ports:
2
Ports:
2x USB-C (data and power)
Quoted colour spec:
85% NTSC
Quoted contrast:
1200:1
Panel depth:
6 (Hi FRC)
Display Technology:
IPS
Brightness:
300 nits
Size:
388 x 227 x 30mm
Weight:
2200g
Accessories included
1x USB-C to USB-A Cable, 1x USB-C to USB-C Cable, 5V 3A 15W Power Adapter
Touch capable
No
Maximum refresh
60Hz
KYY X90E Portable Monitor: Design(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Out of the box, my first impressions of the X90E were positive. It’s constructed like Soviet-era infrastructure, with a metal skin on all non-display surfaces and two remarkably robust hinges linking the two monitors to a central support plate and foot.
The only downside of the rugged construction is that at 2.2kg, this isn’t a minor item to include in a laptop bag, and you will need one made for a 17-inch laptop to fit it.
When it’s unfolded, the width of the whole unit is a whopping 115cm, although you can make it slightly narrower by adjusting the hinges.
The standard orientation is to place the laptop in the middle and have an extra display on either side, but there are various other options, including rotating them back to provide left and right presentation screens, and also folding one screen away.
You can also use that one screen mode in portrait mode, if you like to mix your orientations.
One curiosity about this solution is that instead of there being one OSD and menu controls, each monitor has its own. I can’t seriously think of a scenario where you would configure one screen to have different brightness, contrast or colour temperature than the other, but this system has that capability.
On the subject of OSD menus, these ones don’t have a large amount of features, and the way they are navigated with buttons is painful. What I fail to understand is that these menus look unchanged from the first ones that appeared on tube monitors twenty-five years ago, same horrible fonts, same insipid colours. The maker's logic appears to be that people will only use it once, so there is little point in making it any better.
In this instance, a menu option to ‘copy to other screen’ might have been a smart choice, but clearly, the menu is something that comes with the display panels, and they’re gloriously unaware of each other.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)A feature that I liked much more was that both these displays can be connected using a single USB-C cable to the laptop. That one cable supports ALT-DP to send data to both screens, and also power. The downside of having the one-cable solution is that the screen on a laptop is one of the biggest power consumers, and having three could whittle the battery capacity down rather rapidly.
If you have multiple USB-C ports, you could power the laptop, which might have enough power to drive the external monitors and recharge the battery, or you can use the included 15W PSU to power the monitors directly.
There are only two USB-C inputs on the X90E, one is for connecting and the other is for power, so it’s not possible to give one screen each to two laptops, sadly.
It’s also not on the menu for any laptop that hasn’t got USB-C (or Thunderbolt) or USB-C that supports video output, because there is no HDMI input. While this solution using USB-C is plug and play, requiring no drivers to function, to achieve those standards its exclusively for Windows PCs (7,8.1,10 and 11), and won’t work with Apple MacBook systems.
Overall, the design of the X90E is focused on a specific customer profile who uses a modern Windows laptop with a display between 14-inch and 17-inch. And, while that might seem a little niche, from a percentage viewpoint, it’s a reasonable price for those who might want more screens added to their mobile systems.
Colour Gamut
Percentage
sRGB
82%
AdobeRGB
64%
P3
63%
NTSC
61%
Rec2020
46%
Gamma
2.2
Brightness/Contrast
Maximum Brightness
312.7
Maximum Contrast
900:1
When comparing these displays, we need to be mindful that these are inexpensive IPS technology panels, and therefore, they can’t hold a candle to OLED or MicroLED technology in terms of contrast and colour representation.
That said, the panels on the X90E were significantly better than those on the KYY K3 I previously tested, suggesting that this maker has developed improved designs.
I’m going to assume that the makers quoted 85% NTSC colour gamut is a misunderstanding, because in my tests, that number was closer to 61%. I suspect it got mixed up with the sRGB, as that’s much closer to 85%.
I say that because while the contrast isn’t the 1200:1 that KYY predicts, the brightness of these panels is almost exactly what they claim.
What information isn’t presented here is the uniformity of luminosity, which isn’t wonderful. The rear illumination of this panel is in the middle, with each of the corners being around 15% less illuminated at 100% brightness.
One curiosity I noticed was that the default White Point on these displays is 7600, not the typical 6500. The OSD doesn’t offer specific temperatures, only ‘cool’, ‘warm’ and ‘user’ definable via R, G and B settings.
Looking at this panel overall, it has decent contrast, gamut and tone response, excellent colour accuracy and uniformity, but suffers from the aforementioned luminance uniformity.
Had the backlighting been more diffuse, this might have been a great result.
I’d summarise the X90E as better than anticipated, but hardly something that those working professionally with colour might gravitate to. But for office work and presentation, in an office with blinds, it's definitely a workable option.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)I recall being shocked by how usable the KYY K3 was, but the X90E is an even better solution and an implausibly low price. Yes, it’s on the heavy side, and it won’t work with anything other than a Windows laptop with USB-C or Thunderbolt, but it's hard to argue with its value proposition.
An HDMI input to allow another system to share the screens would have been a nice option, or to allow both the USB-C ports to act as inputs. But that these aren’t included, along with speakers at this price point, isn’t a huge surprise.
If you need to triple your screen space and don’t mind another 2.2kg of luggage, then the KYY X90E might be the right choice for you.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)KYY X90E Portable Monitor: Report cardValue
Cheap from online retailers
4 / 5
Design
Hinges allow for numerous screen layouts
3.5 / 5
Performance
Other than brightness uniformity, these are decent monitors
4 / 5
Total
Excellent value for money if you don’t mind some connection limitations
4 / 5
Should you buy a KYY X90E Portable Monitor?(Image credit: KYY)Buy it if...You need extra screens
Attach one cable and you have three screens not one, it's that simple, mostly. These 15.6-inch panels can be used in many ways and can be powered separately.
You need color accuracy
This monitor has a limited colour gamut for a portable display, although the colours it does include are mostly represented well. If you are promoting a product where colour is essential, then this probably isn't the best choice.
You have a laptop without USB-C
This hardware doesn't need a driver to work, but it does require a Windows PC with a USB-C port or Thunderbolt that supports ALT-DP mode. Apple MacBook owners aren't included.
For more options, we've reviewed the best monitors for a dual-screen set-up.