Moondrop is an enthusiastic audio manufacturer that has steadily gained momentum over the last three years thanks to exciting products. The $18 Chu II is among the best entry-level IEMs you can buy, and the brand has previously released innovative products like the Dash75 – a retro-style mechanical keyboard that houses a DAC.
Hardwired
In Hardwired, AC editor-in-chief Harish Jonnalagadda covers all things hardware, including phones, storage servers, and routers.
Moondrop also makes planar headsets like the Venus, but has bigger ambitions for its next product, the MIAD01. MIAD01, abbreviated for Mobile Internet Audio Device, is a phone that features a balanced 4.4mm port alongside a single-ended 3.5mm jack, a flagship decoding chip and independent audio circuitry that eliminates any interference should mitigate.
Then there’s the phone hardware itself. The MIAD01 will feature a flexible 6.7-inch OLED panel with 1080p resolution, 120Hz refresh rate and, interestingly, 1920Hz DC dimming. In renders shared by the brand on X, the device looks like any other giant slab, with the ports located at the top.
As someone who reviews enthusiast audio products and a ton of phones annually, I feel like the MIAD01 is tailored to my needs. Moondrop announced MIAD01 details earlier this year, but I didn’t take them seriously – audio brands tend to share grandiose plans all the time, but most of them don’t come to fruition. However, in this case, the brand has actually launched the phone and it is available through audio retailer HiFiGo for $399.
A smartphone with features: 6.7 inch flexible curved OLED screen, 1080P resolution, 120Hz high refresh rate, 1920Hz high frequency PWM dimming, superior screen and premium sound quality = premium audio-visual experience. #moondrop #MIAD01 pic.twitter.com/ehDVQIPd21April 23, 2024
This of course raises many questions. Why does Moondrop make a phone? Will there be a Play Store? How many updates will there be? What about customer service? Making a phone is much more challenging than making audio products, and most brands opt for digital audio players instead. These players have a screen, decent hardware, dedicated audio circuitry, and usually run an AOSP version of Android. Think of these devices as phones without all the connectivity bits.
Fiio’s M11S is a good example; It is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 660, features ESS Saber’s high-end ES9038Q2M DACs, a 5-inch 720p screen, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage and a 5300mAh battery. It runs Android 10 and will move to Android 12 later in the year. Although Android 10 is outdated, it is still usable in this setting because the interface only lets you play the music streaming service of your choice.
Designing a phone is much more complex. It requires cellular devices and should be able to handle a variety of everyday tasks – texting, making calls, surfing the Internet, using social media, playing games and anything else you do with a phone – in addition to playing music . Moondrop simply doesn’t have the resources or technical know-how to make a phone, so the MIAD01 will be a rebranded version of an existing device.
Then we see MIAD01, …4.4mm fully balanced + 3.5mm SEFflagship decoding chipGolden independent audio circuitIndependent LDO supplyEnjoy pure quality.#moondrop #MIAD01 pic.twitter.com/UsigSqs0vIApril 23, 2024
Since the MIAD01 has 1920Hz PWM dimming, the options are limited to a Chinese company. I can’t imagine Xiaomi, Honor or any of the BBK brands somehow becoming a white label manufacturer. So if I had to hazard a guess, the MIAD01 uses an ODM that caters to smaller manufacturers like Blu.
The blocky design of the MIAD01 is reminiscent of ZTE’s Nubia Z60 Ultra, but the MIAD01 is a mid-range model. The brand confirmed that it is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7050, which uses older Arm v8 cores, including two Cortex A78 and six A55 cores. It will have 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage, 12GB of RAM, and a microSD slot for up to 2TB cards.
The smartphone with features:Mediatek Dimensity 7050 8-core processorCortex-A78 processors with a clock speed of up to 2.6 GHzCortex-A55 processors with a clock speed of 2.0 GHz12G LPDDR4x RAM256G UFS3.1 flash memoryStorage expansion card: up to 2TB capacity#moondrop #MIAD01 pic.twitter.com/veOxYWnS4tApril 24, 2024
While the hardware is interesting to speculate about, the software is the biggest limiting factor for a new brand entering this segment. And unlike digital audio players, AOSP isn’t enough on a phone, so the MIAD01 needs differentiated software. And somehow I doubt Moondrop’s ability to succeed on that front; The brand’s Link app for connecting to its earbuds is riddled with problems and often unusable.
A phone that doubles as a music player would be ideal, and LG has done an excellent job in this niche. But that’s a thing of the past and I don’t think Moondrop will be up to the challenge. The brand has had its fair share of failures in recent years, and with the MIAD01 it may have overcommitted. The device must deliver excellent sound while being able to compete with the best mid-range phones.
A more sensible option would have been to launch a digital audio player like Fiio, HiBy, Shanling, Sony, Astell & Kern and other audio brands, but as we’ve seen in the past, Moondrop doesn’t like to play rules with traditional audio devices. Still, I’m interested in taking a look at the MIAD01 and seeing how it performs – both as a phone and as a digital audio player.