No album art and no internal memory. Blah.

I think saying it once would of sufficed! 
 
It is weird having no album art after being used to it for many years now and internal memory would never go a miss but 256gb sd memory is enough for me on the go and after hearing the sound of this decided for the money and size it is has focused on the quality of sound and power in a small player foremost with no thrills. It would be nice to think HIFIMAN will maybe work on that at some stage if they could get the battery life to last with extra album art etc. 
 
I for one at the moment in time is a refreshing change to see someone make a good quality player but aim it at been so small and light so what would normally bug me with album art also or internal memory have accepted it to a degree as the sound quality is very good in such a portable player.  
 
I'm still waiting for that person who can do a player this size with OLED screen with album art and at least 50 hours battery life with DSD512 material with balanced out with Wi-Fi and  latest Bluetooth used for high res streaming and sound out of this world for still a sensible price but have not seen one of them yet!  

Sorry, webpage error, never showed it posted. I was able to remove. Anyways, the price is steep and with no internal memory and no art or EQ there are better offerings. Cowon D comes to mind.

Two ways of looking at it which some do with the price is it would be cheaper without the balanced iems supplied but guess they felt there are still many out there who would be buying this would be there first experience of balanced in a portable player so included the iems which does push the price up.   On sound alone I felt it was reasonably priced.  Not sure why there is no internal memory actually but feel even small a foot print it is they still had to cram stuff into the player and decided to sacrifice that maybe.   At least it has reasonable SD card storage even though maybe 512gb SD would of softened the blow of no internal storage perhaps? 
 
There is no denying a lot of people like their album art and that well could deter some alone as it would of done normally for me but I like what I heard and how it paired well with most of my cans/ iems. 
 
I'm not one for EQ so much and just want a player that can handle most things without a fuss, I tried the Cowon way once and drove me mad getting that right every five minutes.  Must admit I really liked the look of their new Plenue players but had heard they have not changed in that respect down the years although I want to hear that for myself have found it more difficult than I thought it would be to try one first without having to buy it blind.  
 
I do feel this is just the start for HIFIMAN with the small players and in a year well could see a different beast which improves in those areas. 

I think with this type of player, album art is completely unnecessary. I will preview a bit of my review and say that the HD600 runs beautifully off of this, which almost no portable player can say. I don't even think the Chord Mojo does a great job with the HD600, serviceable, not great.
 
If small and powerful is what you want. The SuperMini has both in spades. $50 less and price and they'd probably have a hit, though. They should also included a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adaptor, as their type of balanced is uncommon. Luckily for me, I have one, and will be testing.

Take it you are aiming this at Hi-Fier Glassmonkey?

Kinda, but not really. The diminutive size, power and battery life necessitate a compromise, screens are big battery hogs, so I think it was a good compromise to make. It won't be for everyone, but it will make some folks pretty happy.

I think a lot of people who keep saying this is lacking things like wi-fi, bluetooth or album art etc are missing the point to a degree with this player as this was always going to have primary goals with the money going into the components to give it the power and SQ for this small player, 
 
Even my Hugo also struggles with certain headphones hence I got the Vorzuge Pure amp to cope with that but yes the SuperMini does a good job of of a pair of old Senn 300ohm Ovations I listened to.  Yes that is another thing that was a shame with the size of the balanced connector there from HIFIMAN. 
 
I would only like to see album art on this if it did not affect the battery life any further as the battery life specs have let HIFIMAN down a bit here, still hoping some final firmware update tweaks might somehow squeeze a bit more juice out of the Super&Mega Mini. 
I had an oled screen on my old Sony X1060 and looked stunning with album art but that did not effect the battery too much as it was only powerful enough for iems.  I'm happy with these players as my goal was all about the sound and not the frilly bits with bells and whistles attached.  If I wanted that I would of said one android brick based dap like the A&R or Pioneer dap please!  

@FortisFlyer75 good points made and nice review. The primary issue though is that there are players at the same pricepoint (or slightly higher) with a dedicated chipset and features like bluetooth and touch.  While few players at this range offer a balanced output, having a balanced output alone doesn't signify anything without notes on implementation. 

Cheers thatonenoob, HFM could of probably made it more price competitive if they had dropped the balanced iem from the deal for sure which would of made it marketing wise a really attractive proposition shaving of say $80 and once people have purchased one they would of purchased a balanced iem anyway no doubt if they did not already have one.
 
 I'm not sure how forthcoming HFM are with the lowdown on specs with the balanced side of it but I'm not one of the science boy types on here as there are others that do that better than me (like yours truely)  that are into the data, graph side of it in mega depth as I saw in your very concise and informative in depth review (which I enjoyed by the way)  so I just rely on my old dog ears to reflect my findings there. 
 
You would also be surprised though how many out there are not into or get on with touch screen players (as I know a few as it goes) and also even bluetooth especially older generation listeners out there so despite cost of player signifying what is value for money to performance ratio to it's competitors some times there is another end user to target that appreciate the more simpler things in life in a player. Granted will probably never target the majority for mass sales in this respect.  
 
Myself personally I am happy with a touchscreen with album art but for sound and size of this player accepted it as a fair trade of for once all though admittedly I do miss album art for quick glancing out of pocket is easier to identify not so familiar album/ artist when on the move in a outside daylight setting. So I won't lie I can imagine maybe if they can improve further with battery life they could make available a full touch screen SuperMini (OLED with album art!)  in the same footprint as this one sometime next year! That would look pretty cool would it not? 

I agree @FortisFlyer75, negating album art is so non-moving forward with technology. If battery life is a factor, they could of easily added a larger mAH lipo battery. Lipo technology is so cheap now it's not a good excuse anymore. That would satisfy more parties, and also they could add in the menu to turn the album art off as an option with the current battery and let the end user decide.