Hello
Brooko,
It's actually quite a mess. Yes the E18 was advertised for Android and the E17K isn't. But in actuality, they both work for about the same number of Androids. Some phones work with the E18 and not the E17K, but some phones are the other way aorund. Both can be set to not draw power from the connected phone (the E18 by switching to PHONE IN, the E17K by setting USB CHG to OFF).
In theory both the E18 and E17K should just all work with phone / OS combinations that formally support USB audio in-system, require special software like Hiby or UAPP with phones that support USB OTG but not USB audio formally, and only refuse to work at all with phones with no USB OTG support. But small differences in the particular USB receiver chipset used in the E17K and E18 and devil's details in the particular USB outputs of different phones result in the hit-and-miss situation described at the top. In this respect the E18 and E17K don't seem too different from other brands of USB DACs.
The E18 was designed for the Android to the extent that it had play/fwd/rwd buttons that would trigger the corresponding operations on the player program on the smartphone. But in the end the compatibility for the audio working in the first place seemed no better than any number of self-powered USB DACs. This stung FiiO enough to have them
offer ten internets for a solution, and now the marketing department has given up advertising Android compatibility altogether, it seems. But they need to learn how to say "We're not saying it won't work, we're just saying we don't guarantee it will work" in English in answer to queries, instead of stuff like "we don't support it" :rolleyes:
Best regards,
Joseph Yeung (FiiO spokesperson)
P.S. The X3 and X5 series (1st and 2nd gen) are like the above, with the added caveat that they can't be told not to charge themselves from the phone, with the result that more phones refuse the connection because of too much power drain.