I bought a Hiby R6 2020 when it launched but I had a lot of gripes with the heat it produced as well as a bunch of broken features within the Android OS it used. I ended up liking the size and feel of the R6 2020 but I wished it had been refined just a bit more given its initial $799 price when it launched. Since then we’ve had a few entry level and upper end DAPs in and out of our home. When I saw the announcement for the R6 III, I was in shock since it had a more current Android OS, a good mid grade SOC spec’d like a $800-$1k DAP but came in at $499. It even had new features like the option to switch between Class A or A/B. All seemed too good to be true given its price. So with my love-hate relationship with the R6 2020, I was super excited to see if the new R6 III was what I was hoping the R6 2020 could have been. The spoiler alert here is that I love the R6 III and if you want to simply skip all of this review, just buy it and give it a shot. For those who’re interested in a little read, let's get into it! The Hiby R6 is a DAP that is running a Snapdragon 665 SOC with 4GB or RAM and 64GB of internal storage. It is also running Android 12 and makes use of the ES9038Q2M DAC as well. It comes in at $499.00
Quick shoutout to my friends at MusicTeck for setting me up with a review unit at a discounted price. While I always appreciate stuff being sent in to test and review, It never affects the rating of my review.
Looks and Feel
If you’ve seen the R6 2020 in person and held one, this will be the exact same experience. The R6 III has a really well designed body, if not a little on the thicker side. I do really like the placement of the volume knob on top as well as the button layout on the right side of the unit. The bottom of the unit houses all the output jacks as well as the charging port. I don’t quite like the placement nor having line outs next to headphone out but I personally stuff rubber plugs into the line outs so if someone needed to use my DAP, there isn’t any worries about sending max volume to their ears. The memory card slot is exposed to the elements and I would like to see a dust plug integrated. I don’t really take my DAPs out into any extreme conditions though. All in all, I liked the design of the R6 2020 and nothing has changed here with the R6 III.
Android performance
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