Gadgetory

the smartphone has become a one-stop shop for all of our mobile computing needs but there's a growing concern that certain aspects of the smartphone are starting to plateau now we get this question a lot if you're really into your music doesn't it make more sense to invest in a standalone music player won't the quality be better than trying to do everything through our phones we really wanted to answer that question for the music fans in our audience but as we were producing this video news came down about a certain manufacturer who was walking away from the dedicated music player market and in the past we've used Pheo they're a manufacturer of high quality audio hardware this is a little USB DAC that we've used in previous reviews to talk about smartphone audio because they do make other products we are able to shift gears and talk about this beauty in red this is the third-generation Co x5 - sexy little brick of a gadget chock full of decks and amps and ports and dials and buttons everything that you might need to pump your high quality audio files while on the go if the hypothesis is music players do a better job than phones shouldn't we test this little player against the strongest phone competitor we have yes one yes we should and of course that means the LGV 20 I praised this phone in a bunch of videos on podcasts this is the highest quality headphone experience you can get in a phone today so this is the showdown a test those claims see if I actually know what I'm talking about when I'm recommending audio gear jumping right in with the hardware there's definitely something I missed from that classic age of iPods and zooms I love the design in red but again just like with phones I can't say I'm a huge fan of the glass back again for shooting this video I've got to wipe it down every single time I touch it this is recalling that Golden Age of mobile digital audio and I kind of dig it and I really like the controls the buttons the clicky tactile feel the jog dial to control the volume again it's a nice charming throwback to how we used to control audio you never have to really look at the screen play pause skip next track a lot of these things have been moved over to the headphone the little microphone own unit usually has some buttons on there you can answer calls do all that fun stuff too but especially when you're dealing with nicer headphones they won't always come with that remote control is super important but looking at the software side of that that's where a modern smartphone is absolutely going to excel the v20 is plenty powerful and I do like the way that the LG music app is laid out I think it's a nice pretty app for music the Pheo is an Android media player but it's running an older version of the Android OS it's running Android 5 it can do pretty much anything another Android device can do but there's not as much point getting cranky about like web browser scrolling performance the main focus is audio and they're also assuming you're not really going to be looking at the screen as much as you are listening to your music bill it would be nice if it were a little prettier the video starts you off with 32 gigabytes of storage which is really more like 24 to 26 after formatting and partitioning but it does come with dual memory card slots if you really want to max out your storage powering nicer audio hardware with higher quality audio files drains more battery than you might think both of these should be good for around 10 hours of audio only playback but of course you're probably using your phone for more than just listening to music happily though this is a standalone media player it does have Wi-Fi onboard you can connect to Spotify Pandora google play music and especially for those services that support offline listening and the Bluetooth on board supports appx so if you have headphones that support that codec then you will have also a higher quality wireless experience when listening that's all well and good we got all the gadgety stuff out of the way but what really matters is the audio quality bumping the biggest audio files I've got lots less files FLAC files these two are fairly evenly matched anecdotally to my gear I think the V 20 is a little more even throughout the EQ spectrum and I do think this phone bumps the bass just a little more aggressively but I really like what the feel is doing in the mids the bass isn't is aggressive you've got a little bit more room for instruments and for the human voice to shine through and I think you get a fuller and wider stereo soundscape when listening on the Pheo looking at the charts both of these gadgets are closing in on the limits of my home recording equipment so quality of output you'll be well served by either now quality is one thing but what we also care about is the amp output it's that headphone volume that's the area where the v20 absolutely shine decimates all the rest of the flagship phone competition pulling up another chart I mean this is the V 20 up against the galaxy si plus just no competition there the V 20 is just stomping all over what the galaxy can do I think we'd be hard-pressed to find a portable player that can really well well damn this vo gets big it gets fat and it gets loud a comfortable listening volume for me is somewhere between 50 and 60 percent of the players total output don't worry like you're not getting what you pay for actually not driving this thing to its maximum all the time also helps reduce the amount of noise that the player will add to your music and this is a big deal even if you're only bumping mp3 you might not have the ear for all the AV geekery and the higher quality audio files not know what you're listening for but you can literally feel when your headphones are not being properly driven but I rambled on enough let's wrap this out v20 versus feel x5 should you be using a dedicated music player for your audio if you're using a phone like the v10 the V 20 the LG G 6 with the quad DAC or the axon 7 this probably isn't going to be a huge jump for you but any other phone currently available at the time this video was shot the x5 absolutely crushes it's not even close so $400 this is right up my alley this is exactly the kind of companion device I love taken with me and it does it's got that old-school charm for being that lump that brick in my pocket that I know I can count on I really did what feel is done here but this is just another data point to reinforce how consistently impressed I've been by the LGB 20 comparisons like these show us how much further we can go with audio and how a lot of our other phones out there really just good enough as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for more comparisons and showdowns like these and help us out with the share on your favorite social network for pocket now i'm juan carlos bag now so i'm gadget guy on twitter and instagram and i will catch you all on the 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