My opinion: the only plus x5iii has is bigger output impedance and balanced output; other than this it is slow, buggy, has small imprecise screen, very poor wifi and sound quality is not better. I like how v20 sounds, android is laser fast, stable, battery lasts longer, you have all the smartphone advantages, camera, internet via mobile network (and wifi of course).
The problem is this: to have a good android standalone dap that sounds better than v20/v30 one has to pay close or more than the price of these smartphones. Even without android, without streaming, a good dap costs close to v20/v30.
But for portability, in this price range, to have all these, smartphone and dap features that trully work, i don't think there is a better option. No additional cables or devices unless you want to drive higher impedance headphones but these are not portable. I listen using lcd2 fazor directly from v20 and the output is great, this version of lcd2 is easier to drive compared to classic version. I have an ifi black label dac/amp and the difference is not that obvious for a normal listener, only picky ones will detect details making the difference.
One more thing, some people on x5iii insist that sound on this dap is good, it just didn't appeal to me, but they didn't try v20 or they tried it with stock players or official apps for tidal, google and so on. Actually the true value of any hifi dac is shown using a good app that directly accesses the dac. Like UAPP. The difference is so obvious that honestly, people just loose much of the quality of sound if for example they go with stock player or tidal app and do not stream tidal via uapp.
So, if you do not need additiinal amping and find a good used v20, try it. Otherwise you might want to wait until v30 price drops.
