Y1 Overview - First Impressions
Well, today my Y1 finally arrived. I also paired it with some JBL Tune 720bt
The box had:
- The Y1 (obviously)
- A small instruction manual
- A pair of wired earphones
- A charging/transfer cable
By the way, the quality of the earphones really surprised me. I expected something cheap but these are actually pretty good. They are braided (until the cables split into the right and left earphone, after that they are just standard), have a metal finish on the earbuds themselves and sound nice for something that I didn't even expect to receive (it's kinda like an included gift, I guess?)
Anyways, the Y1 is made of plastic, but it doesn't feel cheap. It's actually a lot heavier than I thought it would be (like, heavy as in quality, when you can feel that it has a solid build). It also felt a bit, metallic? Like, a bit cold to touch. Just a bit. Don't expect iPod levels of premium finishes but it is definitely well made and very nice to hold on your hand or keep on your pocket.
It has a small speaker, a usb-c port (not for audio, only charging and data transfer), a hidden reset button (you need to use a paperclip to access it) and a 3.5mm jack
The back has a simple matte finish, and has the logo and a bit of info at the botton. There's really not much to say here. The quality is nice I guess
It has a pretty neat screen, the resolution is better than I expected. I installed rockbox in this puppy without any issues and I'm really liking it
Some useful tips: If you keep the play/pause button pressed for some seconds and then let go, it takes you right to the track you are playing at the moment. You can adjust the volume with the scrollwheel, and if you keep any of the forward/backward buttons pressed, it rewinds or goes through the music, kinda like when you skip to a certain 00:00 in a yt video.
Even though it doesn't look like it, this actually runs android (4.2.2, or at least my y1 runs that version, idk if it's the same for everyone). I ran into a small problem while setting up my theme, I thought you needed to put the theme's extracted folder INSIDE the .rockbox folder in the Y1. You are actually meant to take out the .rockbox folder that is inside of it and put it ON the Y1 (without putting it into any folders). Just a simple mistake I made cuz I misunderstood the instructions on the guide (btw it's on this post, very useful)
It has some quirks I have to check out (some albums won't display their covers), but that's a pretty simple fix and if idk what to do I can always rely on this subreddit. Well, I hope this post can help anyone considering buying the Y1 ( or anyone that just got their Y1 like me)
I will update this post in about a month, discussing my experience with this little devices (it will be a separate post, but I will link it here)
Posted Dec 8, 2025, 3:37 AM UTC