I picked up a cheap MP3 player from AliExpress for the equivalent of ~$11 (at the time of writing) a few weeks ago. I’m not a fan!

The MP3 player in question is a Ruizu X02. I have exactly 2 major problems with it, but before I go over that I’m going to gloss over what I like about it.

What I like

Hardware! Most people would complain about the hardware but I’m not going to. Even for the price, I think the build quality is just fine! It’s lightweight and made of a kind of soft-touch plastic, but it feels solid enough! I like the physical controls on this, and while they don’t work the way you’d expect them to, that’s more of a software issue.

On the bottom, there’s a headphone jack (which felt a bit tight the first time I used it), a hardware on/off switch and surprisingly, a USB-C port! On the right, there is a micro-SD card slot. If I remember correctly, the quoted maximum capacity this audio player can handle is 128 GB, though I’ve read of people using even higher capacity cards on this with no issue. I myself used a 64 GB card.

The screen is indeed trash, but how long are you really looking at that thing? It genuinely doesn’t matter, unless you’d really like to watch videos on this (which it can do)! Battery life is also great! I used the thing for a few weeks, and I never had to specially go and charge it. It only charged whenever I plugged it into my computer to transfer files.

What I don’t like

There are a fair few things I don’t like about this, and they’re mostly to do with the software. Only 2 of these issues are deal-breakers for me; the rest aren’t hard to overlook.

Major issue #1

The first issue is the music app. There’s one thing here that bugs me to no end!

Suppose I have two albums, both of which are called Greatest Hits, but both are by different artists. If I were to put both of them on here, this app will merge both of them!

But that’s not it! I have two albums, one of which is called Persona 3 Reload Soundtrack and the other is called Persona 3 Reload: Episode Aigis Original Soundtrack. Can you believe! It’s going to merge both of these! I’m assuming it’s doing this because they both start with ‘Persona 3’ but still! I have this same issue with two other albums, as an example: Shin Megami Tensei IV Original Soundtrack and Shin Megami Tensei V Original Soundtrack.

Major issue #2

After dealing with the mess that is the music app, I thought I’d use the file browser instead. No big deal, after all. At least this doesn’t merge folders by the first few letters in their name! But there’s another issue here.

The file browser sorts all the files by date. HOWEVER, you cannot change this! It sorts by date and ONLY date. I would like to sort by name, and this, alas, is not possible.

I tried obtaining a newer firmware in the hopes that it may solve these issues. However, at that moment in time (we’re talking about December 2024), the link to download firmware from their website was alas dead. I tried emailing customer support but to no avail. They did respond, but were unable to provide any firmware.

As of the time of writing, though, the link is working now! I’ll try flashing a newer firmware (soon), and IF that solves my issues then this whole section will become redundant!

Minor issues

• Volume control is rather odd. You have to hold down on the VOL button for a few seconds, then adjust. It’s not that bad, but trying to adjust volume while the thing is in your pockets is a bit finicky.
• Navigating the menus is not very nice. Only on the main “home” screen do the front buttons act as you would expect: press up to go up, left for left, right for right, down for down, and middle to select. In your menus, however you press left and right to scroll up and down a list. You press VOL to go back, and M for a context menu. I’m not exactly sure how else they should have done this (maybe a software back button, and hold the middle button for a context menu), but it’s not that bad once you get used to it.