HIFI WALKER G7 Android Player

Really love my G7 nice size fits in my pocket perfectly and sounds good.

First of all, i wanna state that at time of writing this, i've only had/used this guy for about a month. But within that time, i've been playing around with it and have come to really like it. I did make a couple of customizations to it to improve the experience which i'll get to later. I'm also only using this for listening to my own music files rather than streaming so i can't say much about how well Spotify/Youtube/etc work on here.

So let's start with the the audio quality. This isn't like HiFi's DAPs where those are giving you really high quality sound output. This is an Android device (typically are not renowned for having top-of-the-line DACs) and one going for ~$60-100 USD. I'd say the quality is about the same as what most Galaxy devices offer, using a Samsung Galaxy S20 for comparison. I'm mainly refering to the audio quality coming out from the 3.5mm headphone jack which i tried using with both my higher-quality PC headphones and the $10 wired earbuds i commonly use for on-the-go. The G7 does have a small built-in speaker too and, well...it functions (don't expect good sound out it though). If you're not a super picky audiophile and just want to listen to some tunes when you're out and about, this is should be efficient.

What about battery life? I haven't done an entire multi-variable study on how long it takes to hit zero but from my experience of listening to offline music over a period of roughly six hours straight with a fully-juiced battery, the percentage got down to the high 80's by the end. Streaming music (especially Youtube) will definitely be a bit more power-consuming and having the screen on most of the time will also add to that so i'd recommend keeping the screen timeout on 30 seconds or a minute to get the most out of it.

Up next, the pre-installed music player app. This thing is pretty basic, only offering 4 catergory tabs for Artists, Albums, Songs, and Playlists. You got a shuffle feature and a simple equalizer too but that's about it. Not very feature-ful. Luckily since this is an Android device, you can install Android apps on here and thus a better player of your choice. Personally, i went and installed Musicolet and that's been working well for me. There's also a pre-installed FM Radio app too and to my surprise, it scans for actual FM radio signals instead of over the internet. The G7 doesn't have an antenna though and will need to use your headphones' wire for signal instead. What i find really neat though is that the app not only let's you listen to radio broadcasts but also let's you record and save them too as an MP3 file. Most people probably don't care about recording radio programs anymore but i think it's just a nice thing to have.

I do want to touch on the G7's interface and functionality. Currently the G7 runs Android 13 and uses a home launcher called Blueshark. Blueshark works decently enough however it does like to zoom-in wallpapers a little and that bugs me a bit. I myself switched over to using Nova Launcher ('cause who doesn't love Nova?) and thankfully the G7 makes it easy to change the default home screen launcher in the system settings. Another thing i want to mention is that despite being advertised, YOU CAN NOT UNINSTALL CHROME. It and several other Google apps can only be disabled but you can't completely delete them from the device (Boo!). I also want to mention that the G7 has an Auto Shutdown Timer in the system settings and mine was turned on by default. If you buy this and it seems to keep randomly powering off, that's most likely the culprit. Last thing i want to mention is the camera (because almost every portable device has to have one these days apparently) and it's alright i guess. It captures in 1080x1440 resolution, like the pre-installed music player app it's very basic in function, and there's even a dedicated camera button on the G7's side for quick access. I'm not sure just how many people would actually be using the camera when they're mostly buying this for music and audio, but it's there if you need it.

Lastly, i want to mention a couple things that i think would be nice enhancements. 1) Add a hole in the protective case for the microSD card slot. Music can be transfered through USB, but for several gigabytes of tunes it's faster to copy straight to the card. If you have the case on, you have to remove it everytime you want to eject/insert the microSD. 2) Move the Power and Camera buttons to the left side of the device. This is a personal nit-pick but if you can't see the buttons well and are feeling for them, it's annoying when you're trying to turn the volume down but press the power button instead.