F20 HiFi MP3 Player with Bluetooth5.2, Lossless DSD High Resolution Digital Audio Music Player, High-Res Portable Audio Player with 64GB Memory Card, Support up to 512GB

I've been searching for the last couple years for a portable music player that suited my needs. I've wanted a player like my old Sansa Clip Plus with rockbox; Very fast and responsive User Interface that is also Easy to navigate through music files by file name alphabetically(NOT file tags), and all buttons with no touch controls. Obviously sound quality is something to consider but the interface issues mentioned above take priority for me personally. I ordered the Surfans F20 a week or so after I had ordered the HiFi Walker H2 as I was curious if it was the same player and I wanted a spare music player to experiment with. Much to my surprise he F20 is Identical to the H2 outside the physical styling. The F20 has an aluminum frame with a plastic back while the H2's entire housing is metal(probably aluminum. The F20 has metal dimpled scroll wheel with light buttons that stick out of the housing noticably while the H2 has a rubber coated scroll wheel and much firmer buttons that are closer to flush. The F20 uses a Micro USB port to charge and transfer data with it's Micro SD slot being recessed while the H2 uses a USB C port and a more flush Micro SD slot. The H2 weighs considerably more than the F20 and has a lanyard loop in the lower right corner where the F20 is noticeably lighter with no lanyard loop. For all practical purposes the F20 is an H2 minus some weight, the lanyard loop, and has Micro USB instead of USB C. That being said, everything that I said about the H2 applies to the the F20; It ticks all the right boxes; * The controls are are buttons and the scroll wheel has indentations in it. In most cases you can use the Back or Skip track buttons on the right side of the player instead of the scroll wheel if you so choose. * The user interface is very intuitively laid out. * The user interface is very responsive and fast. * The player firmware works with 1TB micro SD cards * The player supports multi folder deep file structure * The volume control is very precise giving a scale of 1-100 with increments of 1 * The player sound quality is Noticeably better many older cheap players I've used in the past * When browsing music by folder; the files actually appear in alpha-numeric order. * The screen is reasonably bright. It seems a bit dim in daylight but its usable with brightness set to max. * The battery life seems pretty good(15ish hours give or take) * The player plays MP3, OGG, WMA, M4A, FLAC, and WAV I cannot speak for the people looking for some premium HIFI experience, but I can say from a practical stand point; the player is easy and practical to use if you have a large music collection sorted by folder(no tagging) and sounds great even on my janky old headphones and car speakers. It would be disingenuous not to include any criticism of the player so are are a few niggling issues myself and a friend have noticed; * The player seems to have a cut off point somewhere for displaying song files by file tags. I dont use file tags to sort any of my collection but a friend does and he said the H2 only showed about half of his collection (36K songs) from a 500GB micro SD card. When we switch to folder browsing we found everything showed up. If you have a large collection you want to browse through by file TAG then the H2 is probably not for you. * The font/theme/interface is very limited in it's customization. You get like 2 different themes and 3 options for font size. Other than that you cant really customize how the player looks. * The scroll speed doesn't accelerate when browsing by folder when you scroll the wheel or hold down a navigation button(back or forward). This makes going through a large collection a little slower but its not horrible unless you have like a thousand files or folders to go through in a single directory. * The anti-aliasing on font in the player makes it seem slightly blurry at times. There is no way to turn it off.

This system can take accidental drops but be careful because I would not guarantee that. This system does allow portable beautiful music to be shared on speakers or listened to totally privately alone somewhere like on a train or city bus. There may be better systems out there. It may just need mega base boosting headphones if there is such thing. I found that the way I set the EQ causes sound on head phones lacking the full bass that I wrote into my digital remaster song. It would be nice to have EQ memory 1, 2, 3, but it has none. I set the EQ to match my cool Bogasing speakers. On speakers, bass is no issue. I can get a very acceptable amount of bass with the music player and the speakers. I don't have to use super bass mode. I doctored songs with editors. Each song is written to sound perfect. I never have to adjust anything on music players or speakers after rendering a track. I have better speakers now than when I first bought this device. The sound is more rich now. They are bigger speakers and not so easy to carry around my neck the way I was doing with little speakers. I can also use a scarf to wrap and tie the speakers up and attach them to any bicycle handle bar on the left and right and I had no choice to do something because the speaker hangers broke with hard bike riding, but the wide scarf does a pretty nice job. No EQ setting is satisfactory for bass on head phones, but I can use my computer head phone port and Windows Media Player to get the sound I expect on head phones with and without a Soundblaster card. The fact is I have never needed F20 for head phones. I will give it 5 stars because it works well. I have remastered every song I listen to to play as loud as it can without distortion second by second, and bringing out the sound of instruments and voices much better and with excellent flow and volume balance. I have made old Christmas songs sound so good, even kids like to hear me play it. It is amusing to travel on side walks with speakers. I would be nice if people would appreciate all the work I did. It is more real to try to go savage and carry speakers without a car or a motorcycle and I want people to like it because of the beauty in it. The music is not just for me. It is also for people outside to get a drift of what I thought was something good. Much of the songs are just sweet love songs. I have been a little tempted to listen to my old favorite death metal songs, but those songs could be offensive to people. I have had issues with my computer and the micro-sd card getting corrupted at times but it can be fixed and I can export or copy the songs I wanted over any corrupted file from backups or the source. I've never really lost anything. I am familiar with command prompt on Windows and I like using it. I have various sound mastering programs, that are some free progs and some professional software. The main thing is I like the songs and can listen to it in my bedroom too even when nobody is there.

First off, this is a product for audiophiles...not people who just want an "mp3 player" or a neat toy to play with. If you don't listen to music in hi-res formats such as 24bit FLAC/ALAC or DSD then you don't need this and may get something more affordable that just plays mp3 files because this really isn't for kids or people who aren't audiophiles. This is no toy but a sophisticated hi-res media player capable of things that iPods only dreamed about. The instructions are also your friend...READ THEM! Some people complain about the navigation wheel but if they just read the manual they would have found that you can very easily navigate using other buttons. So, navigation is no issue for me (but yes, that wheel sucks). There are other things that are very useful to know in the manual, however it references a website that is obsolete - mainly in reference to drivers specific to the unit's USB-DAC functionality (which has to be intentionally activated, and the driver is pre-loaded on the included microSD and must be installed on PCs). I wouldn't recommend this to people to use as a USB-DAC, though (especially if running Win 10 because it's a driver from 2013) - the Monoprice Desktop Amp is much better in terms of a pure USB-DAC without any driver installation required and also costs less. If all you want is a USB-DAC and not a portable media player then don't get this. I got this mainly as an extension to my existing USB-DAC (Monoprice Desktop Headphone Amplifier) because I wanted something that supported DSD files which I could run through the Aux In on the Monoprice - so, I needed it to have a line out jack. Sure, a headphone jack can get the job done but it's not always the best method so I figured I'd do it right from the start. If you only need a headphone jack then perhaps the Fiio M3k might be better suited for you (it also supports more space), but I haven't used that one because it only has a headphone jack. However, for those that need a line out to extend their hi-fi setup then this is the unit for you - though I highly suggest getting a microSD card with more space because that 16GB card that comes with it will fill up rather quick if loading lossless audio onto it. Also, it transfers data faster if you have a card reader on your computer versus connecting via USB. The transfer rate via USB is around 10MB/s or under but when card is inserted as media the transfer rate is around 25MB/s - the only drawback to doing it this way is that you have to manually update the player's content and it won't do it automatically as it does when transferring via USB. It's super easy to manually update it, the instructions tell you how. This player really brings out the quality of the audio and even sounds better running it through the Monoprice's Aux In and through my stereo vs playing the files from my computer and through the Monoprice's USB-DAC into my stereo, I don't have to turn it up as loud. But it's all relative to how good the recording/mastering is to begin with. I definitely prefer playing the media off this instead of my computer though (most likely due to less interference). There are a few things that I would improve upon in terms of design and functionality but all-in-all this is very good lossless media player that I would happily recommend to anyone who is technologically intuitive. However, don't give this as a gift to people who can't navigate their way around a smartphone (or need to have a touch screen for everything). I took one star off because it could be better in terms of functionality and the user interface. Pros: * Audiophile quality sound (and powerful!) * Built-in EQ * Solid construction and sturdy housing * Has both line out and headphone jacks * Plays all formats of lossless audio and all sample rates * Has low/high gain options (keep it low unless you know it needs to be high, especially connecting to external units) * Has Bluetooth (didn't use that so can't review the Bluetooth functionality) * Long battery life * Automatically pauses when headphone/line out is disconnected * Can optimize display and settings to your liking (colors, brightness, screen timeout, etc) * Idle shutoff (so battery doesn't drain) Cons: * No charge light indicator (only power light) and doesn't indicate how much of the battery is charged when it's charging. * Function buttons don't work when screen is black and you have to quickly press the power button so the screen illuminates to "unlock" button functions. Probably great for those who keep it in their pocket or in an arm-band but it should have its own dedicated lock option or the option to disable it. * Navigation wheel is more for show than function, easier to navigate with the << and >> buttons. * microSD slot is a bit too recessed. If you have really short nails you might have issues removing/inserting the card, the tip of your finger won't do it.

I was looking for a good quality music player and since I listen to a lot of music, I was told multiple times that my best option was to get this ‘Surfans F20 Media Player”. The Good: + Price, for what it was to do, it was a fair price. + Battery life was suppose to be ~10 hours, longer if disable blue tooth, sounded good. + Can expand memory to 256GB (my old was 80GB max) [Also tested with 8GB and 128GB, no troubles in either format either]. + Simple UI to brows your music. The Neutral: * NO onboard memory for music, can ONLY play music from a mSD card. * Text/images a bit small for me to see, I wish there was size option to change font size at least (+color of font since some of my music covers are near the same as the text it shows). * The site, manual AND the paperwork with it do NOT mention all the ‘Play modes’ you can select, what the icons even looks like OR what they do (one says has x# options, but unit shows there are y# of choices)….VERY confusing since the #s on how many choices there suppose to be, don’t match themselves. The Bad (therefore -stars): - While listening to music (I’ve held the unit in my palm, also can be sitting down with it in front of me on a flat surface) and WHILE it’s playing music, it will SUDDENLY stop playing…I look at the screen and try to play/brows to the folder/genre I was listening to and it will give me the error message, “No Memory Card Please Insert the Memory Cards”…the mSD card is STILL in the unit and I have made sure nothing was touching it, this has happened MULTIPLE TIMES in a day! * I have used a program called, ‘h2testw’ as well as scan/check-disk the mSD I use on it (and others I tried with it) multiple times to verify it isn't the mSD cards (also, they ARE genuine mSDs, I've tested them several times), all tests on every mSD I tried say there no problems with the mSD cards themselves. * Yes, I also go the same error with the included 32GB mSD card it came with. * I’ve also tested the unit with other brands and sizes, some last longer, but they ALL suddenly stop playing music and give the same error EVERY TIME! (I only have ~560 music files right now, small tip of my library, I don't mind rotating them, but I get that random error no mater what albums/files I put on it). - Support is 1,000% NON-EXSISTANT! I’ve e-mailed them SEVERAL TIMES (mostly about above ‘glitch‘ but 1st one was just to ask a question NOT in there FAQ/site, about a month after I got it), and I have not gotten ANY response back. LAST email I sent was OVER 4 months ago! (no response for that as I'm tying this now) - Battery lasts ~6 hours MAX (music set on loop/repeat without me touching it while it‘s playing) with Blue tooth OFF. * I’ve fully charged it several times and tested the capacity, LESS then the ~10 hours it promised each time. Conclusion: I LOVED the unit, BUT with this glitch that won’t go away (I don’t know if it’s the unit or the firmware, but it’s on the latest as of writing this @ v3.1) I don’t know what to do since it’s too late to return and support will NOT respond to ANY question or complains I have, hence I’m doing this post/review…don’t think anything will happen, but at LEAST others will be warned about these problems and find a better company. I’d love to get a new (or replacement) to see if I just got a bad unit, but with there non-existing support....I don’t think will ever happen. So Money wasted ;( PLEASE, just stay away from this unit/brand/company.

I purchased this specifically for the car, and am unable to get rid of the extra noise, it is a high frequency whine, which sounds like digital noise / aliasing from both outputs using a cable to Aux input (yes checked seated completely same with 2 other cables). The noise is present 1. between tracks 2. in pause and 3. while the audio is in playback which is the most annoying. I am thinking filter issue for the DAC chip? Or is it the radio?...need another car radio with Aux. This noise is not present with headphones direct or Bluetooth. So, some kind of incompatibility for the F20 output and My radios Aux input of the car radio. Not having schematics of the F20 player only the Car Radio in which Aux is isolated via caps and ground is raised via 470 ohm resistor. The Ipods, an old Walkman tape player and a Marantz digital recorder/player have no noise and great audio. I will have to move the scope to the car and see if I can diagnose the issue. So far, help from Surfans has been less than helpful...I must give them more time as they currently have no clue, they need an engineer and not a customer service rep for this issue. Or send me the schematics... So I wait....hoping The radio (older Kenwood w/CD) Aux works fine with my other portables (above) especially the ancient iPod Nano and the regular iPod in which battery life is limited, hence looking for replacement other than an expensive Astell&Kerns to leave in the car. As far as a comparison with the iPod, Apple knocked it out of the park as far as function but not great audio, however it is good enough.... The F20 is a little less user-friendly but easily functional and serviceable. I love the fact it does not have a darned touch screen. AMEN! Bluetooth seems good, as are direct headphones (be sure 32 ohm or less). Bluetooth does not always connect. It may be interference?... I don't know, when it connects it is great. Is the audio super high quality - No, but good enough like my iPods especially if in a car/bus/train/plane. No cell phone, so I cannot compare audio, which I am certain is not great. Being I listen to classical and jazz, mostly FLAC and wav files, my Squeezebox touch handles these exceptionally well The really nice thing is it handles just about every file type, even opus which is not listed. Works with Linux - plug it in, and it acts like a thumb drive to transfer files. Hooray!!! Minor annoyances- Having it in hand, I would suggest rounding the 4 corners as they are just a little too sharp. Display - Larger print option like huge would be also welcome. I do not mind scrolling. Speaking of print, what the heck is that manual, one needs a microscope to read it ! Thank goodness for a PDF! More info on using Linux would have been nice, I figured it out where to put the music files...I do not own/use MAC or Windows...( ok, a Win XP laptop for the antique iPods and test equipment). One must get used to the interface, it is "clunky" for lack of a better word. Again serviceable. Scroll wheel works - ok, be nice if not so stiff, it may get better with use. A little coarser stippling may help too. Now, how do I move fwd or back within a playing piece??? The long press >> seems to jump to next or previous...must be me being clumsy.-YES my issue I may send it back If I cannot solve the extraneous noise issue, I have a couple of weeks. Again, I need to do some testing by moving my tools to the car....car is not coming into the house! I will update this later, only had it just over a week....I may be expecting too much especially from Surfrans customer service/help...I will send another email and we shall see. Renée update- 25 May 2024 I found the problem - NO HELP or very little from their Engineering Dept at all. They seem to think cables are the issue, or it is the audio files - WRONG on both!!! I finally had time and made a quick breakout and bring the scope to the car... I put the scope on the lines--it was obvious looks like oscillations- did not go any further as I recognized the issue from RF devices I design and service....the F20 amps appear to be /are oscillating, (it may also be "bleed through" from the DAC). Appears that amps cannot handle the capacitive load /reactance. 10K is not enough load for this device, or impedance mismatch is causing the issue. I put a resistive load of 75 ohms on each channel to ground ( on my fixture) and the problem vanished, tried 91 ohms still ok. So, somewhere 50 to 100 ohms need to be added across the outputs of maybe both headphone and line outs, this is depending on how it is implemented...I could sure use the schematic. btw, 50, 75 and 91 ohms were what was convenient on the bench and all did the job. 100 ohms are in the ugly breakout box now until I get inside and install them. I sure could use help on getting inside and the schematics, especially to understand why. Let us see if the Customer Service will send that info.---i kind of doubt they will....but one never knows... I will update this if they do hope this helps someone else if the problem arises. Renée

So, here's the skinny from a new purchaser. First of all, I am using a SAMSUNG EVO Plus w/ SD Adaptor 512GB Micro SDXC with the unit ($44). Yes...a 512 gig card. It works just fine. A 512 card will give you around 477 gig worth of storage. So far, I have loaded a total of 1,705 tracks onto the card. There are 1,508 FLAC tracks and 197 320 kbps MP3 tracks (and a few of those are variable bit rate tracks). I STILL have 370 gig left to use on the card. Traditionally, loading music into these things can be a slow process. Therefore, I purchased a UGREEN SD Card Reader 4 in 1 Multi USB 3.0 Micro SD Memory Card Adapter ($17) to speed up the process. Saw complaints about the recessed memory card. It's done to protect the card. It Is NOT hard to get the card out...take your thumbnail and slowly press the card down. It is designed to POP UP when you do that. DO NOT remove your thumb during the process or else the card will shoot out like a cannon ball. Good luck finding it if it does that! Next, in answer to using the unit with a car stereo system, YES!...if your car unit has a USB slot, this WILL play via your car stereo! The only drawback to this is that your car stereo looks at the unit as if it were just a USB memory stick. You WILL lose the random play feature. Otherwise, it sounds great (since most of my music is flac). Which brings up the sound quality...ANY type of MP3 file is a LOSSY file. Therefore, it will automatically (even at 320 CBR) NOT sound as good as a FLAC file. FLAC files are LOSSLESS...you don't lose any of the quality of the CD that you ripped it from. If you want the HQ FLAC files, you can buy them online via specialty dealers. Regular FLAC files are 16 bit when you rip them from a CD and HQ tracks are 24 bit. There IS an audible difference...not huge, but you can tell. Cymbals are more precise. So...if you use crappy MP3 files (the lowest kbps that I will even listen to is 256 kbs...and I wouldn't use them on this device)...DON'T expect this unit to audibly make your crappy quality files sound good...or better than they are...period. Not sure why people have such a problem with the controls. So what if you have to hit the start button for the screen to reappear? Are you trying to run your battery life into the ground by having it ON all the time? You CAN set the time length for how long the screen stays visible. I cannot speak about Bluetooth usage. I am old school...I don't use Bluetooth headphones, nor have I tried to hook into my car stereo that way. Speaking of which, get some GOOD earbuds! Don't use crappy ones! If I do attempt to try to hook into the car stereo, I will post my thoughts on it. However, I have serious doubts about doing that. Regarding the volume, I have NO issues with it whatsoever. After being in the music business for 30+ years, you learn to NOT ruin your hearing (or what's left of it) by listening at a deafening volume level. With all of that being said, the unit delivers great audio quality...providing that the source material is high quality and not junk. If my thoughts change about the unit after several months use, I will most certainly provide an addendum to this review. As is...I love what I bought. Let's hope that it stays that way. Recommended buy...if you use good source material and good earbuds/headphones.

I bought an mp3 player as a result of all of the ads littering youtube and spotify. Back when i bought this in 2023, it worked as intended. It was shorted out in a storm and i contacted the company as requested. Their customer service is impeccable. I got a reply hours later, and after sending an invoice had it replaced. I highly recommend this company for their stellar customer support and the functionality of their products. Review of product — Pros: This player is one of the best I have ever had. Most mp3 players for me were too loud, too uncomfortable and too short in battery life. I cant say much about the mp4 aspect, but i can tell you the screen is great for displaying general information. It has a small square space that you can add an image too. It’s very simple to set up. I personally do not use playlists and instead folders, so i’m sorry that i cant speak for playlist support. One thing i wasn’t actually expecting is that it supports lyrics. The battery life is outrageous. It lasts me all day, and even when i return home it still has some. Its about the size of your palm, its a little heavy but its not a nightmare that weighs down. I actually forgot i had it in my pocket when i went out shopping for 4+ hours. Its about as heavy as a thin phone, maybe less. If you’re wondering if theres any lag— Its nearly unnoticeable. I have about four hundred songs and theres no lag yet. It plays songs almost immediately, and ive had no issues in that regard. The sound is crisp— amazing for a portable little thing. It’s made me notice small parts of music i haven’t appreciated before. Sometimes i just lay down a listen. I’m never turning back personally. Now that I’ve had a taste of good audio i can tell when audio is muffled. A blessing and a curse, haha! Mostly a blessing. Cons: its not waterproof. At all. Not even water resistant. My thoughts are that this is likely to avoid pressure and too much of a humid environment. Then again, I dont think you should be using a DAP in a pool. If you do want that, this isnt for you. The edges are kind of sharp, so be incredibly careful not to drop this on your foot or anywhere near your soft squishy parts or you might regret that. Dont grip it like a maniac either, thats probably gonna hurt ya. I’ve also heard playlist support is a problem, so i suggest looking into that before purchasing. If you drop it, it might damage the battery. Though, mine was completely fine, so i’m not sure. Not much cons. All and all, if there was a rating higher than five stars, i would give them all the stars i can. Amazing!

The DSD decoding on this Hi-Res audio player is impressive, and the music sounds clearer with more detail than when I play it on my phone. Its support for multiple audio formats lets me use all my FLAC and APE files with no quality drop. The Bluetooth 5.2 connection has been stable, and my wireless headphones pair easily without lag. The ALPS scroll wheel feels smooth and makes navigation simple. Overall, it’s a solid portable player and a great value for the sound quality it delivers.