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HIFIMAN HM-700 Portable Music Player with RE-400B Balanced In-Ear Phones Review

HiFiMAN HM-700 User Interface

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The HM-700’s user interface isn’t its best trait. I feel like I’m using an old phone from a decade ago. You may also need some time to get used to its user interface and familiarize the function of the buttons, specially the arrow keys. To turn on the device, simply press and hold the middle orange button. The first image above shows the startup screen, followed by the main menu.

You have three main options from the main menu: File Browser, Music and Settings menu. Use the arrow buttons to navigate the menus. Just an observation, when navigating I observed that the HM-700 is not very responsive. I notice that there is a slight delay when cycling through the menu and options. Nevertheless, I feel that the system is stable enough since I haven’t experienced any serious lag or when the device suddenly freezes while I was using it on a daily basis.

From the Settings menu, you can adjust the display’s brightness and backlight time, sleep time, auto power off, change the language, view system information, format the device, rebuild the database and reset all settings.

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Accessing the File Browser lets you open the sub folders Music and Playlist. Nothing to do in the System folder. The Music folder is where all your music files are located. It’s recommended that you place your music files into different folders depending on how you want to segregate them.

The Music menu is like a shortcut. It lets you jump to what’s currently playing, view all music stored on the HM-700, view the music by Album, Artist, Genre, Rating or view the Bookmark List. It’s important that each of your music file has a proper metadata labeling, otherwise it may not show up on one of these shortcuts.

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The photos above show the Now Playing section. The artist’s name and title of song is displayed. The album photo should also be displayed, but in our example photo album is not available. You can also see the time line, star rating and the position of the music file in the folder. Notice that there is a rewind/previous symbol on top, a pause/play symbol on the right, a forward/next symbol on the bottom and an arrow back on the left. That corresponds to the arrow buttons below. Pressing the arrow right pauses the music, pressing the down button moves to the next music and so forth.

The left and right orange buttons are for the volume up and down. If you press the center button, it serves as a lock. However I would prefer a dedicated lock switch rather than a button that can easily be unlocked when pressed. If you also hold the arrow right while on the Now Playing section, it will display another menu as shown below.

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From the sub menu, there are a number of things you can do with the music file; from changing the EQ, rating the music, play mode, to deleting the music file, and more. The settings in the EQ are all presets, but you can also customize the EQ to your liking via Setup Sound option.

Now let’s move to the next section and find out how the HM-700 and RE-400B sounds.

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Peter Paul
Peter is a PC enthusiast and avid gamer with several years of hands-on experience in testing and reviewing PC components, audio equipment, and various tech devices. He offers a genuine, no-nonsense perspective, helping consumers make informed choices in the ever-changing world of technology.

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