Toshiba Gigabeat T-Series MP3 Player

Many consumers do not know that there are other mp3 players in existence besides Apple's iPod (Read Steve's Review of the iPod).  In fact, there are many different companies which make these portable music players -- some of which create a superior product for the same or less price.

One of these superior products comes from the Japanese company, Toshiba.  The Gigabeat T-Series doesn't look like anything too special.  It is black, and comes with a choice of four colors for the control pad and back of the mp3 player.  It features a 2.4 inch, full color screen.  The Gigabeat is small -- it's only about 3.5" x 2", or about the size of a credit card.  What is better is that it's not much thicker than one either, at around half of an inch.  The buttons are big enough to press, and are easy to feel while the device is in a pocket.  And yes, it uses buttons.  There is not a touch screen on this device, and although it might not seem as "cool" or technologically up-to-date, these buttons have their advantages, such as being able to operate the mp3 player with gloves on (crucial in an environment which often requires it), or completely by touch when its not in sight (such as when in a pocket). 

Upon turning it on, the Gigabeat displays its menu, which is easy to navigate, selecting through music, pictures, videos, recorded TV shows, and settings.  Songs can be organized by title, artist, genre, or playlist.  Specific songs are easy to find due to the first letter of the song appearing as you scroll, so that one can stop at the letter the target song begins with.  Movie quality is good, as the screen has a resolution of 240x320 pixels, which is good considering its small size.  However, the Gigabeat has only 4 GB of storage space, which means that you may have to pick and choose the movies or music that you put on to it.

Unlike Apple's iPod which must use iTunes to sync to a computer, the Gigabeat can use a number of free programs.  Windows Media Player is the recommended program to sync the Gigabeat to your PC, but WMP is a frustrating program in general, and thus syncing the Gigabeat can be difficult.  However, other programs, such as WinAmp, a free media player from Nullsoft Inc, can manage the files on the Gigabeat with no problems.  Furthermore, one can always manually drag files from their computer drive into the Gigabeat directly if neither of these programs are available.  Still, with limited space, managing the songs on the Gigabeat can get a bit tedious through any program.

The feature that sets this mp3 player above the rest is its sound quality.  Toshiba did not skimp in the electronics, and thus the Gigabeat is able to deliver a full, rich, and accurate sound.  In fact, there is a setting called Harmonics, in which the user can select from either none, professional, or dynamic.  With either professional or dynamic enabled, the mp3 player is able to bring better sound quality from an mp3 song, which is a format often known for its terrible, terrible quality.  Mp3s are highly compressed, which means that lots of the information that was present in the original recording has been omitted so that the file size is smaller.  However, the harmonics of the Gigabeat compensates for frequencies that were neglected during compression.  It's not a large change at all -- in fact, most users may not notice a difference, but the change is there, and it helps squeeze a bit more sound quality out which otherwise would have been lost.  The Gigabeat designers seem to have had sound quality as one of their top priorities, because they did not allow the device to become loud enough to distort.  An iPod, for example, will distort above 90% of its volume.  Even though this will cause it to become "louder," the last 10% sacrifices sound quality -- something which the iPod isn't really known for anyway.  Anyway, the Gigabeat doesn't do this, but it also will not become as loud.  While normally not a problem (especially with today's overly compressed music), there are times in which I would have liked a little bit more volume.

Battery life is excellent.  Toshiba claims 16 hours of music play time, although I found it to be more around 12-13 hours, depending on listening volume, screen brightness, etc.

The Gigabeat might not be for everyone.  Sound quality seems to be of little concern to many people of my generation, and thus probably isn't high on priority lists when considering a new mp3 player.  Its incompatibility with Macs and iTunes DRM music will make it a hassle for many to use.  However, if you want a solid, reliable product with decent sound quality, then look no further than the Gigabeat.  It's relatively cheap at about 100 dollars, and is a great alternative to the iPod.  Unfortunately, the Gigabeat is no longer in production, but the specs and features can be seen at the Toshiba Gigabeat Website.

Thank you gadget-paradise.com for the image.

Posted by Sean at 9:18 PM