Moondrop breaks into the smartphone market with the MIAD 01, a smartphone designed for audiophiles
Following a suite of teasers, Chi-Fi IEM maker Moondrop has made its first foray into the world of smartphones with the MIAD 01 – the Mobile Internet Audio Device.
Essentially, the MIAD 01 is a smartphone and digital audio player (DAP) combined into one – or you could call it a smartphone designed for audiophiles.
At its heart is the mid-range 6nm 8-core Mediatek Dimensity 7050 chipset and that’s paired with 12GB of LPDDR4X memory. As for storage (important for hoarding music files), the Moondrop MIAD 01 has 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage with microSD storage expansion of up to 2TB. The phone also has a USB-C port that supports USB 3.1 connectivity and transfer rates of up to 5Gbps.
Weighing in at 202g, fueling the MIAD 01 is a large 5,000mAh battery with 33W USB-PD charging. This large battery helps to power the 6.7-inch 1080p curved OLED panel with a 120 Hz refresh rate.
Camera-wise, there is a 32MP front camera and on the rear, the MIAD 01 has a dual-camera system consisting of a 64MP primary shooter and an 8MP secondary camera.
Since it was designed for discerning listeners, the Moondrop has dual headphone jacks that consist of 4.4mm balanced and 3.5mm single-ended outputs. The balanced jack has a 4Vrms output white the 3.5mm has 2Vrms.
It is powered by a flagship quad-channel dual Cirrus Logic Master HIFI DAC, though no specific model was mentioned. The audio circuit features a 6-layer gold-sinking, electromagnetic shielding, and an independent low-dropout (LDO) power supply.
The MIAD 01 also features a 100-level hardware-level DAC volume control and comes with a Moondrop Audio Center app with DSP functionality. According to Moondrop, the MIAD 01 measured performance is 132 dB of dynamic range and a signal-to-noise and distortion ratio (SINAD) of 118 dB.
As a phone with origins from China, Moondrop claims the MIAD 01 will run on pure stock Android 13 with promises of no data collection or advertisements.
There’s no question that as a phone, the MIAD 01’s specifications are pretty middling. But if you consider that it can double as a respectable entry to mid-range DAP, however, it becomes a much more interesting proposition. I can see this being an attractive option to young audiophiles who have limited budgets for their hobby.
Availability and pricing
The Moondrop MIAD 01 is available in China for 2499RMB (~S$469.29). We don’t have local availability and pricing information yet. We’ll update this article once we do.
