Fiio x3ii seems to be the champion of budget dap nowadays according to many reviews so probably youll get something pleasing out of it.

I was into smartphone as source until I hit a wall trying to couple it with something twice the price. Having a dedicated dap actually save the phones battery and storage for something more important. More you could save budget for a dedicated amp, depending on what 'speaker' youre using.

Personally I dont fancy anything that came out of smartphone speaker and couldnt help but thinking wanting to kill the person who play songs out of it if im picking up the sound, mainly because of how the sound is (too loud, distorted, cramped, pinched and so on) and second probably your music taste is enough to summon the Hyde inside.

Okay. You mentioned ui then yes probably the expensive ones do have better ui but I think nothing can beat a 5" dedicated screen of android or the same, navigation and cost wise. Yep, theres no dap here can satisfy your requirement but for smartphone, you might want to look for something that has front speaker like htc. Good luck.

Well actually Im a patron to mobile section and had share of rooting experience on budget smartphones namely Lenovo P780 and Huawei Mediapad X1. These are the best in term of 3G browsing performance vs value for they have big capacity battery 4k and 5k mAh respectively. They're of course lacking in term of giving out the best to dedicated DAC like OPPO HA-2 because of low bandwidth output coming out from their micro USB port hence I have to keep my fiio E18 for portability since it pairs better with budget smartphones than the demanding HA-2.

Now that it's very clear to our friend here am3 that he will not get anything better with a low budget dap while Sony's and AK240 have better ui and sound performance but very steep in price. He'll get a remedy in the like of HTC phones especially their flagship One M8 and 9 which has front speakers spewing the best in sound quality smartphone's speaker wise whilst its not the loudest plus friendlier Android's ui for his picking. With the price of Sony nw-zx2 he could buy htc flagship phone which is very close to his preferences. That will save him an extra speakers. Yes and again it's very true he was looking at the wrong place just because he doesnt want to have an extra gear and stretching the budget.

That thing is RM3k, Mr David?