toshiba GIGABEAT WILD!!!!!!!!

[luqman]

i found the toshiba Gigabeat and wow it is better than the IPod 60gb it has 60GB of harddrive!!!!

11 October 2004 - There comes a time when you must get fed up of other people taking all the credit for your hard work, and it seems that time has come for Toshiba with the announcement that its latest hard drive – a whopping 60Gb model won’t be destined for the iPod has we had all predicted, but instead be saved for its own MP3 player range – the Gigabeat. Pocket-lint travelled to Ceatec in Japan to have a play with the latest iPod contender.

Compact and weighty, the Gigabeat is roughly the same size as the iPod 40Gb model. However that is where the similarities stop. The front is adorned with a large 2.2 QVGA 240x320 pixel colour screen that is crisp and clear and a sliding control cross mechanism – a mix of the ClickWheel from the iPod and the slider from Creative’s Zen Touch.

All the menu screens are controlled via this interface and it’s sort of like using a d-pad without the pad. However in use we had trouble getting the unit to response to our demands every time. Toshiba were keen to point out that it was a pre-production model, and that any problems we were experiencing were due to that rather than a fault with the concept or design.

We did eventually get the hang of it, but considering our demonstrator had no problems with the unit we can’t but help blame our own fingers rather than the inability of the machine to understand.

Accessing the menu system via the “Plus Cross” as Toshiba likes to call it, works well, and for most should be easier to use than the Click Wheel and the Zen Touch slider. Because of its flatness it won’t be bogged down with the sticking out problems of a joystick or D-pad either and overall does add a little bit of style to the unit’s design. Elsewhere on the player, buttons and sockets are hidden on the side of the unit. There is the standard volume controls and a default menu button that resets the screen to the main menu if you get lost within the system.

Software is laid out in what seems to be the standardised menus you so often see on large hard drive based units and is broken down into artist, album and genre. Because of the large colour screen you can also view record covers and Toshiba are hoping to release a USB add-on that will allow you to input digital images to store or more importantly view on the player within the first six months of launch.

Connecting to a PC is done via USB2.0 and a docking station, which can also be connected to a network to share. The docking station also recharges the unit and while we didn’t get a chance to properly test battery life, Toshiba are stating that you should be able to get over 20 hours of playback.

On the sound front the GigaBeat seemed to be fairly quiet. We tried it with a pair of ear-muff styled headphones and we still had to have it at full volume to really hear it. There was also a whole host of pre-set equalizer settings available and while the obvious ones like bass+ where noticeably different to the pop settings for the most part they were all very much alike

wooooooooooootnessssssss i personally think its worth buying i like it alot actually i wann buy it does anybody else wanna buy it??

[aKho]

Originally Posted by luqman

i found the toshiba Gigabeat and wow it is better than the IPod 60gb it has 60GB of harddrive!!!!

wooooooooooootnessssssss i personally think its worth buying i like it alot actually i wann buy it does anybody else wanna buy it??

from the review, it doesn't sound very impressive. of course it seems to be still in development stages so probably they'll iron out it's problems before launch.

how much is it? where's the source link for this article?

[KENcer]

has been out for a few months now. first saw it in http://www.audiocubes.com/index.php?...&filter_id=37m

if im not wrong theres an 5, 10, 20 and 40gig model as well, depending on which model youre looking at

there might be some threads on it in:

http://head-fi.org/
and
www.avforums.com

[aKho]

Originally Posted by luqman

wooooooooooootnessssssss i personally think its worth buying i like it alot actually i wann buy it does anybody else wanna buy it??

ok so it's out already. when you gonna buy it? do a review!

[luqman]

Originally Posted by aKho

ok so it's out already. when you gonna buy it? do a review!

i dunno i might buy it tommorow am gonna buy the 60 GIG model

[ZuePhok]

Originally Posted by luqman

i dunno i might buy it tommorow am gonna buy the 60 GIG model

review please!

[luqman]

The Toshiba gigabeat MEG-F60S has more bells and whistles than an ice cream truck. And although there is lots of storage here, the player has serious sonic flaws on everything but flat EQ.


Huge color screen. Dozens of options. Works easily with Windows Media Player 10. Entertaining screen animations.


Heavy harmonic distortion on all EQ settings. Inconvenient menu structure. Transfers music only via dock.


$292.00 - $450.00


Player Type: Hard Disk MP3 Player
Radio: No
Recording, Voice: No
Recording, Line In: No
Audio Battery Life: 330 min
Screen Size: 320 x 240 pixels
Capacity: 60000 MB
Dimensions: 4.1 x 2.5 x 0.6 inches
Weight: 5.7 oz

and here is the review:

The Toshiba gigabeat MEG-F60S will attract attention wherever you go. The huge, vertically oriented color screen and white, plus-shaped control surface will stop gadget freaks dead in their tracks. Colorful screen wallpaper, eye-catching animations, and a silver and brushed-steel body could attract a blind magpie. If only the music delivered what the visuals promise.

Just slightly taller and thicker than the Apple iPod, the gigabeat packs 60GB into its nicely styled case. Our initial enthusiasm for the plus-shaped control surface, which Toshiba calls the Plus Touch, was quickly dampened when we realized that it's just five touch-sensitive switches. There's no sliding function or pressure sensitivity in the arms. Forward- and back-scanning happen at a fixed pace. There's no acceleration or ballistic function, and sliding your finger around doesn't change the rate of progress. Ditto for the volume control. The center of the plus is either play or pause. The volume controls are duplicated on a side-mounted rocker, next to the menu button and power switch. Each time you press the menu button, you start at the top; it doesn't remember where you were last, as most players do. You can transfer music only through the dock. When you plug into the player's USB jack, it shows up as a hard drive on your computer—no more, no less. The audio files gain a .SAT suffix when you transfer them to the gigabeat, and are not playable on any other device.


We'd forgive much of the above if the gigabeat were a great music player, but it's only listenable with the EQ turned off. Though it's hardly the only player with that flaw, its harmonic distortion is worse than most, masking the music with layer after layer of harmonics and adding a pack of wolf tones to our audio sweeps on many EQ settings. When the EQ is flat, however, the gigabeat is delightful, with clarity, expression, and good dynamics, suitable for plugging into your home stereo through the player's line-out jack. The gigabeat drove its bulky metal earbuds to a constant 99 to 100 dB on our loudness test, with peaks of 104 dB.

The gigabeat is also a photo viewer, but you can transfer images to it only with Toshiba's provided software, gigabeat room. Gigabeat room is a messy application; its photo browser never successfully scanned our hard drive or transferred images to the gigabeat. You can back up your digital camera to the gigabeat, but only via the dock, and you can't see the pictures that you download.

Although pricier and a bit bulkier than some other large hard drive players, the gigabeat looks cool and packs a lot of storage. Virtually everything that's wrong with the gigabeat is in its firmware. A marathon session of tweaking and tuning would turn it into a really nice player.

what do u think

[aKho]

that's not what we wanted la, that's like a cut and paste from other site's review. we want your personal review after you bought it so you can honestly tell us if it's worth it, good and bad, pro and con, price, where you bought it from, what functions you like, some comparison..etc..your own experience with it.

and if you quote from a source, please supply the link! else i'll take it with a pinch of salt.

[luqman]

Originally Posted by aKho

that's not what we wanted la, that's like a cut and paste from other site's review. we want your personal review after you bought it so you can honestly tell us if it's worth it, good and bad, pro and con, price, where you bought it from, what functions you like, some comparison..etc..your own experience with it.

and if you quote from a source, please supply the link! else i'll take it with a pinch of salt.

well am no good with reviews!

well i got for $456.56 its pretty good u can have alot movies on it i got about 10 movies 800 songs! the best thing about it is the + controller the menu actually "plops down" so u can choose what u want like an apple computer it has pretty nice features u can change the quality of the song u can change the screen resulotuion and other neat things u can also just hook it up to ur computer and watch the movie in there or on the back of my or urs (in this case) HDTV and watch it there instead i can't say much about it i just go it put i will search more buttons for ur sake well there u have it folks my third review (on my own)

[aKho]

Originally Posted by luqman

well am no good with reviews!

well i got for $456.56 its pretty good u can have alot movies on it i got about 10 movies 800 songs! the best thing about it is the + controller the menu actually "plops down" so u can choose what u want like an apple computer it has pretty nice features u can change the quality of the song u can change the screen resulotuion and other neat things u can also just hook it up to ur computer and watch the movie in there or on the back of my or urs (in this case) HDTV and watch it there instead i can't say much about it i just go it put i will search more buttons for ur sake well there u have it folks my third review (on my own)

nice! take some pictures of it ya. where did you bought it from? you think it's better than the iPod video?