Customer Reviews

Toshiba Gigabeat MEG-F10L 10 GB Digital Audio Player Blue

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Toshiba Gigabeat MEG-F10L 10 GB is a great choice for an MP3 player, with a few caveots.

First off the highlights:
- The color screen is lovely and displays pictures wonderfully.
- The capacity to price is great - better than an IPOD
- Physical size is good - and fits in to my pockets without a problem.
- Fast forward button to scan a song
- Great choices for equalizers
- The '+' nav button makes things simple to navigate through your collection
- Great battery life - 16 hours! (oh, and recharge time is quick)
- Recharge via USB!
- quick transfers w/ USB 2.0
- The docking station is great, and if you don't want to use it all the plugs (AC adapter and USB) have connectors on the player.
- Super user community (www.mygigabeat.com)
- Can function as a quasi external drive - windows xp pro recognizes it as an additional drive and you can store generic files on it.

A few detractors (with the product):
- The software (gigaroom) in it's current version 2.x is pretty crappy on face. I understand there is a new version coming out to the USA shortly so imporvements should be great. Navigating through this is not that intuitive, but it could be worse. Additionally this supports Windows Media player 10, and I have tried to deal with that, but that's even worse. Also I think Naptser's software allows access to this device, but I havn't installed it yet.
- Propritary data encoding - so you can just drop things on the player via windows, or pull them off once they are on the player (with out going through the software).
- The ear buds that come with this player are fairly large and for me, quite painful. Thankfully I wandered over to a local store and picked up the $8.00 Sony Ear buds - works like a charm now!

A few detractors (in general):
- The lack of store presence is really irritating. After getting my Gigabeat in the mail I went to the local stores looking for cases, accessories, and so forth. The stores vaugely claimed they carried the stuff 'a few months back', but don't any more. Pretty much everything is dominated by the IPOD. So if you are a person that wants their product specific accessoriesnow, in hand, and not having to go through the 'net to get it, I would suggest not getting this product - get an IPOD. I fortuantly don't mind that much, and all I had to get through the mail was the 'crystal clear case/skin' for it.

Over all I am quite please by my purchase, and somewhat regret not shelling out the extra dollars for a 20 gig. This things going to get a heavey use, and once I get the software down pat I will leave the other MP3 companies in the dust.

I would highly recommend the following accessories at the time of purchasing your gigabeat:
- The crystal ice case (Toshiba GBZ1 ICE Clear Case)
- Sony's $8.00 ear buds (Sony MDR-E818LP Fontopia Ear-Bud Headphones)
- Belkin's FM tuner (Belkin Portable Music TuneCast II FM Transmitter (F8V3080))
- Mini Sterio out cable (if your car's sterio allows for it or your friend's sterio).

This was my first impression:

While there have been been numerous MP3 players put out within recent years, one has finally come along that has some style. Gigabeat offers a relieving alternative to the boring white of the iPod and the stale colors of the overpriced minis (no mention for that silly U2 theme). The high-res screen lets you display images and the touch-plus sensor is easy to control. The device itself is great for sound quality, equalizer variations, image-viewing and ease of navigation. The problem is with the software.

Admittedly, I'm an iTunes user, and anyone else who's selected "keep my crap organized" knows that it will categorize music into an insane amount of folders. With this kind of library, it makes interfacing with 'gigabeat room', Gigabeat's library manager, really irritating. The one-touch CD-to-device option would be nice if I didn't already have all my CDs on my drive, but I can see the plus side (haha, pun). On the up-side, if you have everything localized (like you should), it only takes one button to transfer everything.

I don't want to bother with specs because they're already available. The 16 hour battery life is a big draw, though, and so is that 65,000 color screen. For the price, I'd say go for the 20 -- that is, unless you want this hot blue color.


This is new and and accurate review:

Inferior product in its assembly. My *first* gigabeat had a hardware problem, where the audio jack separated from the mother board. It was replaced, thankfully.

However, not a month after getting the new one, I've been encountering and endless string of software problems -- one crashed it whenever I tried to bookmark a track (I had to reformat it). Then, about a week later, the thing just shut down by itself and wouldn't reboot due to a "system error" (which are impossible to find online, by the way). I managed to get it back in order by: Turning off the battery switch. Putting it in its cradle, starting it up, shutting it down regularly, and then turning the switch back on. It was very irritating.

I want so much to love this product, but it doesn't really give me the opportunity. I hate to say it: consider an iPod. God damn you, iPod.

I just got this MP3 player recently and found it to be quite good. The most noticeably feature is the screen, the colors and graphics are amazing. You can also rearrange the display of the screen from portait to landscape and upload pictures and music easily. I am currently using the software they provide you with. Although it takes some getting used to, once you understand it, it is quite easy. The Gigabeat misses in its buttons. The cursor is easy to manage, but because it doesn't light up, in the dark it can be hard to manage. Besides the software problems (getting used to it) the only other problem that I have with it, is that there is no radio built in. But this is just a personal preference. This product deserves a 4.5/5.

I don't understand the negative reviews on this item. This player is great. Features and Price can't be beat. And it is very user friendly, so don't listen to those who complain about the controls or access to menus or sub-menus. The only flaw with this player, and it is a minor flaw, is that when playing a song and you stop the song and then back out to the main menu and then power off, the player goes right back to the last song being played when you turn the player back on.

But as I said, this is a very minor issue. Over-all I would definitely recommend this player to anyone who wants the most bang for their buck.

One of my main reasons for getting this player (besides the price), was I wanted to be something different than what everyone had. Everyone has an Ipod. I've also heard so many complaints about the Ipod that I wouldn't dare spend $300 money on something that is always breaking. The Gigabeat its sturdy, small, easy to use, the screen is large, pictures show great, 16 hours of play time, and it recharges really quick. My computer recognized it right away. One of the things I loved was that it came with a docking station, AC, and USB cable. I would have had to pay extra for all this if I had gotten something different, and who wants to do that? Not me. The only thing that sucks is that accessories for this product aren't sold in stores. I drove far and wide and was told they didn't carry anything for that player anymore. The only things I didn't like were the software isn't grand and accessories (in stores) are hard to find. I was told that they use to carry things for this product, but they don't. If you don't mind waiting a couple of days... order your accessories online.

This is a wonderful product for a fraction of the cost of an Ipod. Contrary to some of the other reviews I've seen about the gigabeat it is actually quite easy to use. It has the same touchpad controls as an Ipod and the sound quality is superb. I highly recommend this as a great alternative to the Ipod. It's nice not to have the same MP3 as everyone else too!

I love the player, Gigabeat Room-not so much. The player controls are pretty much straight forward and intuitive and there's a guide to the PlusTouch controls on screen. The sound is good however, be prepared to chuck out the included headphones. The player is also quite customizable. You can set your own backgrounds and you can even change the orientation of the player. Battery life is also good. By calculation, I've had my player on for 11 hours since last charge and it's still got some juice left. The Toshiba Gigabeat can also function as an external USB hard drive. I've got quite a few documents saved to my Gigabeat. Granted it's not quite as handy as a flash drive but at least I'm less likely to lose the Gigabeat than I would a flash drive. Besides, it's small enough to fit into my jeans' pockets - that's portable enough for me.

Now, on to the bad. There's no way to customize playlists on the player itself. You need to go through the included software to edit playlists. Gigabeat Room takes some getting used to. Fortunately, I haven't experienced any of the nightmares that some of the other reviewers have mentioned. While Gigabeat Room might not be a piece of cake to use, it works pretty good enough for me. Only gripe would be that I need Administrator privileges (Win2K) in order for Gigabeat Room to recognize the player. You also can't just drag and drop MP3s on to the Gigabeat via Windows Explorer and expect the player to recognize them. You'll have to go through WMP10 or Gigabeat Room which DRMs the audio tracks so the Gigabeat can play them. Well, iTunes+iPod does the same thing so I'm not overly annoyed.

Overall, the Toshiba Gigabeat is a good purchase. It sounds good, it's cheap and it looks cool (imho). It doesn't have extra features such as video playback (I have my PSP for that ;P) and FM tuner but it's a pretty darn solid MP3/WMA player.

The Toshiba Gigabeat 10GB is an excellent value. It took a while to get used to the navigation system, but I now find it easy to use. Accessories are not as easy to find as for some other brands, but I have managed to acquire the important basics such as a car charger and travel charger. I am overall very satisfied with the purchase and would again choose it over other options.

The Gigabeat looks sharp and the sound is great but the software is horrible. The cradle doesn't work either on my home or work PC. The "gigabeat room" is not intuitive at all. To top it all off, the Gracenotes software crashes when it tries to connect with the Internet and I have to do a hard reboot. This means I have to enter all track info manually.

This is a great mp3 player, it's very pretty, and I was able to fit all the music and pictures onto it I wanted. I can't find anything bad to say about it other than the fact that it's an ipod world, so there aren't cool accesories for the gigabeat in stores.