Audio-focused Moondrop MIAD 01 launches with mid-range specs and an affordable price tag

[Redaktion]

Moondrop has been teasing its first phone for a long time. Well, the audio-focused smartphone has now officially landed in the Chinese market. The MIAD 01 comes with mid-range Dimensity 7050, a 64 MP primary camera on the back, two headphone jacks, and MasterHiFi DACs. It costs CNY 2,499, around $345, which is a lot less than initially speculated.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Audio-focused-Moondrop-MIAD-01-launches-with-mid-range-specs-and-an-affordable-price-tag.831214.0.html

[Leszek]

secondary camera on the back is an 8 MP UWide according to Moondrop.

[Abid Ahsan Shanto]

secondary camera on the back is an 8 MP UWide according to Moondrop.

Thank you for pointing this out.

[Tres Leches]

The pricing is good but I do question the support and security. Hardware could stand to be a little more higher performing in computer power. But still fair

[Dean Stanton]

Moondrop MIAD

Mine is arriving Monday.
Yay!

As an avid owner of 2x LG G6 (both bought in Seoul from SK Telecom with the HiFi Quad DAC years ago, literally) and 3x LG G7 (including the higher storage version, in magenta, brand new, received yesterday), I totally get the concept of Phone + good DAC + 3.5mm output). They all perform admirably and at a level much higher than eg the FiiO KA1, HiBy FC1 or 3).

This new MIAD 01 takes that to the next level with balanced output 4.4mm as well as 3.5mm, plus a great screen for the price and fairly decent performance from the Mediatek U7050 CPU (inc. 5G support), 12Gb RAM, 256Gb storage. On top of that a battery that's almost 2x the size of my 3 LG G7.
I do think this device deserves to be successful.
As a mobile tech reviewer, stage and studio musician / producer over 25 years, and sometimes pro audio (not consumer) tester and reviewer - this is a device that builds on the best the LG G7 can provide (except for flagship, at the time, SD845 chip) and smokes it with 4.4mm balanced output and better battery life.
As I said at the beginning, my MIAD is arriving in the next 10 hours and my thoughts might change. But as a concept, I do hope Moondrop  has a big success here that will hopefully spawn other brands to take the idea forward just as Microsoft did with the OG Gen1 Surface.
It's also worth pointing out that both the screen tech (120Hz AMOLED at 6.7") and the CPU beat any DAP on the market including any A&K DAP with terrible screen, questionable battery, poor storage performance and a terrible 5 years old SD 660 or 665 CPU midrange chip that is blown out of the water by the 7050 in the MIAD (plus 12Gb of very fast RAM)...
... what I'm saying is that on any reasonable technical measure (beyond internal shielding, Op Amps etc) the MIAD makes a USD3,000+ A&K DAP mostly redundant, plus you only need to carry 1 device.
And if I go out wanting to take photos as well as music, I'll throw in my Pixel 5 at 140 grams into my pocket too - delivering still photography that's still better than the standard Samsung S24... No brainer...