Customer Reviews

Toshiba Gigabeat MEG-F40S 40 GB Digital Audio Player Silver

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(41)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

I first saw the Gigabeat at CES this year and I've been waiting for it since then. I finally got my hands on the F40 a couple a weeks ago and I wasn't disappointed. By the time it shipped here in the US Toshiba applied firmware 2.02 which lets you view slide shows of your favorite photos while playing music.

The good:
- The screen is no doubt the best in its class.
- The touch sensitive cross is very intuitive, much more so than the wheel on the iPod. The Gigabeat can be operated in horizontal mode, my favorite, and the cross is designed perfectly for this. Due to its design switching from vertical to horizontal mode requires no change in how you navigate.
- Setting the EQ to flat will give you crystal clear and a very detailed sound experience, and the volume has more power than I can handle.
- You can preset volume and EQ settings per song in the Gigabeat Room program
- You can browse music by Artist/Album/Genre, but also by folders like Explorer.
- No need for the cradle if you transfer music via Gigabeat Room, or without Room if you use the Gigabeat as external HD using drag and drop.
- Rip Tech button on the cradle will rip an entire CD and transfer it to your Gigabeat in 5 minutes.
- Works with all Play For Sure online music services.

The bad:
- SAT encryption on anything you transfer via Gigabeat Room or Windows Media Player. You can get around it by using drag and drop while connected in Windows Media Mode and using the cradle. Instead of using WMP you just drag and drop your music onto the Gigabeat. Gigabeat will recognize ID3 information and catalog your music when you drag and drop this way.
- USB 1.1 speed when using any other way then Gigabeat Room to transfer music to the Gigabeat.
- EQ quality is not as good as it could be. However with the EQ set to flat everything I have tried sounds great!
- No video... yet.

I REALY like the Gigabeat. I have recommended it to all my friends and I got a second one for my wife. "The bad" can all be fixed with a firmware upgrade, and I'm hoping that Toshiba is listening to all Gigabeat enthusiasts. I belive that hardware wise the Gigabeat is perfect. All that now is needed is some fine tuning on the EQ and to get rid of the SAT encryption.

Lots of information about the Gigabeat can be found over at www.mygigabeat.com. The forum is an excellent way to get most of your questions answered.

Ok, just got my player. I've been trying to find a really good MP3 player for a while. I'm cheap and lazy, so I want one that works with subscription services. Also, I need a lot of music as I fly internationally and if I hear "fasten your seatbelts" in English, followed by Korean, followed by Japanese, then I'll probably loose it.

Pros:
* Display is awesome! Loaded it full of my pictures from my camera and it looks great. You can even direct transfer from your camera into the player without a computer. Nice if you are traveling and want to offload some images.
* Charges via the USB!
* Can be seen as a drive in windows. Big caveat here, when you connect, you have to decide if you want to use it as a portable device or a drive. If you use it as a drive, Windows media won't see the unit (as well as Yahoo Music, Napster, etc) and you can't copy protected files. However, you can just reconnect later as a portable device.
* 40 gigs in my pocket. Oh yea....
* 16 hours of battery life, which is about as long as it takes me to fly to the other side of the planet. Coincidently, it's also the length of all of the Jim Bulushi videos you can watch on my flights.

Cons:
* No radio. Not big deal for me
* You have to use the cradle to use a subscription service. For whatever reason, if you connect directly with the USB cable, it always comes up as a drive.
* No video (yet?)
* Little thick. Newer version in Japan is slightly thinner.

Update - There is now a rockbox port for this. Makes it even better!
I returned my Zen Sleek Photo and replaced it with the Gigabeat (and many thanks to Amazon's great return policy). I've decided that the Gigabeat (GB) is the one for me.

I had originally not considered the Toshiba, consigning it to the ranks of also rans - just like their digital camera's. But looking into this further, I realized that Toshiba is a leader in some of the core technologies used in these devices - such as the 1.8 inch HDD's, the TFT screens, LiPolymer batteries. There was a point in giving this Gigabeast (sic) a try.

The pros relative to the Creative -

1) Unlike Creative, no special cable with associated adapter needed for charging the GB. The adapter plugs right in. A no-brainer sensible approach.
2) The docking port at the bottom is more sturdy than the Zen Sleek's.
3) When you travel, you only need to take your GB with you and leave your adapters and cables behind. It'll charge off the computers USB port using your camera USB cable (if it is the standard mini USB sort).
4) 40 GB HDD space on the Gigabeat versus 20 GB on the Zen sleek for almost the same price (I actually paid even less at Costco). Another no-brainer. I can store all the music in the world and still have space left over.
5) The color screen on the GB is way way better. No comparison. That OLED on the Creative sounds high tech, but it is small, coarse, and turns off after a few secs, so you are left looking at a black screen all the time. On the Gigabeat, you can set it to low power which keeps the screen visible. Plus the screen is larger and way too sharp at 320X240 pixels for a small screen. I haven't measured, but the device lasts a long time with the screen on low power all the time. No problem at all on this front.
6) The adapter is smaller and easier to pack for traveling. One the Zen Sleek adapter, even the prongs don't fold.
7) The entire HDD of the Gigabeat is accessible using windows Explorer. Using it as a removable drive is a breeze - just connect it. On the Creative, you have to set aside and format this space separately. You can either have space assigned to music or to data - but not both. Now how stupid is that - especially when the drive is only 20GB big?
8) The music and photo files on the GB are also accessible using Explorer. You can rearrange contents into folders of your choice, do a "library update" using the supplied Gigaroom software, and you are up and running again.
9) The navigation cross can be used both horizontally and vertically and the profiles can be adjusted appropriately.
10) Pictures look sharp and clear on the great screen.
11) This is great - can move pics from your digital camera to the GB directly. Now I can shoot pics to my heart's content and move them to the GB when the memory card goes full. No need to buy another high capacity memory card. But you cannot view these pics on the GB.
12) Comes with an in-line remote.
13) Mine came with a great docking station while it was not included in the Creative.
14) I guess you can have a slide show on the excellent screen along with pictures - haven't done so yet, but there is a demo file which does so.
15) I haven't looked at the manual yet.

Some con's relative to its Creative counterpart.

1) Shade larger than the Zen sleek and not as good looking. If you really want stuff that is good looking but otherwise a dud, you belong to apples and lemons club.
2) No radio
3) No recording
4) Navigation on the GigaBeat (GB) is clunkier compared to the Creative where the menu's are much better arranged.
5) The touchpad on the Creative just works better than the GB crosspad.
6) No user adjustable graphic equalizer - just bass and treble. But too many preset choices some of which don't seem to do much. No loudness alone control.
7) The Gigaroom software is nothing much to write about - no right click option. Transferring 32 megs of photos (320X240 resolution), created almost 250 megs on the GBeat after transferring with a number of secondary files for every picture transferred.
8) I still haven't figured out a bunch of things - such as - can you delete pics and music tracks directly on the GBeat?. I don't see this choice anywhere while on the creative it was easy.


You should get the 3.0 firmware and software. Nicer than 2.2 that my device originally came with. Updating was a breeze but Toshiba does not post this on it web site. After you upgrade firmware, you need to do a library update using the Gigaroom software before your music and photos can be seen again. Now only if there is a rockbox port for it..sigh....

Sound quality is clear - don't note a difference with the Creative.

The Apple's really a lemon, the Creative is good while the Toshiba is just great. Take your pick.

The player is great value for money, i bought it with the hope that toshiba will add video support in the latest firmware .... 3.00US.

But it hasnt...
For best resources goto MyGigabeat.com in the forum and in archived new you can find links for the 3.00US firware upgrade..
The 3.00 firmware is not avalable for donwload from toshiba or giga-style.com...

The new firmware upgrade is a must coz is adds a bunch of features that are nagging with the old version...
case in point... Cannot set play mode without pressing atleast 4 butttons and two scrolls.. in the new version the A button is/can be programmmed to do that..

Another thing is that the photo viewer is upgraded and is twice as better it alows rotation and slide effects..

One great feature that is very useful but undocumented inthemanual is again navigaation... while playing a file if we goto the menu there is no way to get back to tthe now playinglist.

hold and slide your finger fromthe right to the left on the cross this will open the current folder listing....

left to right to go from main menu back to now playing list...

Wonder why this was undocumented...:-)

In all a great player with the 3.00 firmware upgrade...
but average on ease of use with the 2.20 firmware.....

This is my second review. I wrote the first one when I had the Gigabeat a week or two. Now I have had it a few months.

An MP3 player is basically a cigarette packet sized portable disk drive with connectivity and the ability to decode compressed music files formats like mp3 and wma.

The Gigabeat 40 megabyte player is a sturdily constructed unit that can hold the equivalent of about 600 CDs of music in compressed format, or the equivalent in photos, other data, or even video of about 50 CDs of uncompressed data, so that is quite a lot.

The Gigabeat works well, but nearly all of the problems that you will see mentioned in reviews stem from the poor operating software that comes with the unit, and the automatic encoding of music files.

Almost all of these problems are immediately resolved if you install the free open source operating system called Rockbox, that is available on the Web.

Suddenly a three star unit becomes a five star unit.

You can organize the menus any way you like, you can make the While Playing Screen show any information you like, or design your own, the photograph display software is immeasurably better--darn, you can even play short video clips on it, as long as you don't mind the sound and images not synchonizing correctly.

If you want to fast forward through lengthy files, you can set how fast the operation increases speed. In fact almost everything can be customized to the way you want it.

And best of all, there is no encryption. You can now also recharge the battery via the USB port.

The only other thing you can't do that you can do with the built-in software is to download photos or video from a camera for backup storage.

With the Rockbox operating system loaded, I am totally satisfied with my Gigabeat 40 and would recommend it to anyone.

NOW FOLLOWS MY ORIGINAL REVIEW

This is the first MP3 player, or maybe that should be WMA player I have even had. This type of technology is always involves some kind of compromise to make it possible to manufacture something useful that people can afford to buy, so I tend not to jump in and buy new technologies, but this machine, which could hold the contents of 600 CDs looked like something I could use.

Prior to buying this unit, I had, for several months been downloading radio broadcasts, converting them to MP3, burning them to CD and taking them with me on the road to play in my car and other places. I have been using desktop computers since the days of DOS. I mention these points up front, because this device is definitely not something I would recommend to someone who is not fairly computer and recording competent.

My first hour or two trying to get this thing working were still very frustrating, even though I had taken the time to study both the manuals ahead of time. There are two manuals, one for the machine, and one for the Gigabeat Room software, so you have to skip back and forth between the two. They are not particularly good, and are lacking in illustrations on how to perform certain maneuvers. The FAQ in the main manual only has 4 Q & A's when I could immediately think of at least 20 that would be profitably included, such as "can you run the machine off the power cord without the battery, and why not?"

The manuals could also benefit from a glossary to explain key words, since the meaning of terms like 'library' and 'synchronize' in this context is by no means self explanatory.

This unit is supposed to 1) Organize, record and play music, 2) Store and display photographs, 3) Act as a portable drive. Let's look at each in turn.

1) If most of your music is already on CD, and you want to rip your CDs to the machine, and you have lots of them, then this IS what you want. It is really easy to rip the CDs to the unit, and off you go.

However if you want to do anything more complicated, like loading and organizing MP3 files that you already have on your computer, then the going gets much tougher. The Gigabeat Room organizing software that comes on a CD with the unit leaves a lot to be desired, and very soon I was searching for, finding, downloading, and installing Version 3 of the Gigabeat Room software and firmware programs, which made life a bit easier.

The type of problems I encountered were that MP3 files could not be placed on Playlists from the Gigabeat Room software because they were invisible, or that sequential files (like a serialized book) had to be renamed so that they would play in the correct order. Or I want to add an MP3 track to a file on the Gigabeat, so I have to send it through Gigabeat Room whic h dumps it in the root directory on the Gigabeat 40, then open up a file handling program to place the track where I want it, then go back to Gigabeat Room and run a Library Refresh to get everything working right.

Musical items can be selected by album title, by genre, by artist, or by folder. The problem with the first three is that your menus soon get out of control, for example at the time of writing I have 59 albums loaded, but these contain 148 artists, and are listed under 21 genres. The names assigned to the genres are somewhat arbitrary,not to say bizarre, and may not help you find an album. For example, an album of latin music from Cuba is under "Caribbean", Basin Street Blues by Louis Armstrong is listed under "Club Dance", and an album of music from The King and I and Carousel is "Unclassifiable". Quite so! Amusingly, I have 2 CDs of Christmas carols one of which is listed under "Christmas" and the other under the more politically correct "General Holiday". Genres may differ within one album, and on my soundtrack album of Grease, some tracks are Musical/Broadway, some are Soundtrack, and others are Rock.

Item #4 on the menu is called "Files" and this is what you really want, because now you can open up another program like Windows Explorer and organize your "Files" menu into a hierarchy that produces menus that are not too long. Example, my "Files" menu breaks into three types of files, one of which is "My Music". Under "My Music" are 7 subfolders entitled Rock, Jazz Albums, Jazz Collections, Blues, Musicals, Spanish, Christmas.

So now I can find my albums fairly easily, albeit at the expense of moving through several menus. However the screen is not particularly easy to read when you are picking out albums with similar titles, for example Jazz Masters Volume 1 versus Jazz Masters Volume 2.

It is thus annoying that you are not able to reorganize the menu so as to bring "Files" to the top.

The Playlist function is difficult to operate through Gigabeat Room. You cannot add whole albums or groups of albums at one go, having to select all the tracks individually first. The Bookmark function can also program a list of tracks to play, but it is also laborious.

Another pain in the neck is when you have an album that the software does not recognize, then you have to type in all the tag information by hand. By selecting all the tracks together, you can assign album names and performer names easily enough, but you will still have to enter the track names one by one. The size of this task quickly became apparent to me when a 4-CD Benny Goodman collection with over 100 track titles was not recognized by the system.

None of this makes the device impossible to use, and with a bit of ingenuity you can work around most of these problems, but I am just writing some of this stuff so that you know that it may take a bit of time and effort to master the use of this machine and get it to do what you want.

2) Since the screen is about the size of a passport photo, it too small to meaningfully display photos. I would not buy it for this purpose. If you download photos from a digital camera you cannot immediately display them without further resizing and processing on your computer. You can, however, use it for blind storage. However, it may be extremely useful if you have a small video camcorder like mine that records 30 minutes of video, because when travelling you can downoad hours of video to the gigabeat to free up the camcorder memory. With each device about the size of a deck of cards, they make a very useful combo.

I have actually found a way to download and DISPLAY still photographs on the Gigabeat, which you are supposed not to be able to do, but there you are. But probably this only works with some cameras.

3) It works well as an external drive for carrying data.

So, it sounds as if I don't like the machine too much, but actually now that I have got the hang of it, I am getting to quite fond of it, and though I don't like listening through headphones, some of my music sounds stunning through the earbud headphones that come with this set. It is an amazingly convenient way to carry around my 250 CDs in a shirt pocket in a package tghat is exactly the same dimensions as a deck of cards (only 5/8 inch longer), and means that I won't have CDs sliding around in my car any more. The brushed aluminum finish looks good and the unit seems to be solidly constructed.

On the other hand, I am not throwing away my CDs either. I have had some of them for 20 years, and somehow I doubt whether my Gigabeat will still be working in another 20 years, whereas I suspect my CDs will still be functional. This machine works quite well if you have a small number of CDs loaded to it, say a dozen or two, but with the memory for 600 CD's it is implied that this is a machine that can hold a large collection, yet it does not have the software that can help you effectively organize a large collection without a lot of work.

Here are a couple of tips that might be useful.

a) The Gigabeat is not compatible with the Apple i-Tunes online store, however if you buy music from there, you can convert it to MP3 with a program that records through your computer's sound card, then you can put it on the Gigabeat in the same way you transfer a podcast. (Sames goes for soundtrack music on DVDs.)

b) There is no car charger available for the Gigabeat, but the Sony PSP car charger meets the specifications and will do the job. However you need to obtain a size B tip and solder it on.

c) Get the updated Version 3 software and firmware. You can call Toshiba for it.

d) If you want to carry it around and avoid getting it scratched you can get a soft-sided camera case for no more than a couple of dollars. A snip or two improves access for the headphones cable, and the on/off control may be operated by squeezing the outside of the case.

e) If you want to preserve your battery, you can run the device off mains or car power with the battery switched off, however you must turn the battery back on again before disconnecting, or you will lose your clock and screen settings.

So what is the bottom line? (Sorry to be so long winded). If you want a device that will hold a lot of music, provide backup storage for camcorder videos, and maybe display a few passport size photos, then this device may be a very cost effective option for you. BUT you will get on with this device a lot better if you have good computer skills, and know how to do things like edit tag information on mp3 files.

ADDENDUM February 7th 2007

I have now loaded the Rockbox open source operating systems and most of the original problems have disappeared. It is now easy to organize my files, and they are not encrypted. It is much easier to copy files to the device. You can just rip a CD to mp3 in Windows Media Player and copy it across. You can easily organize your menus and files on the Gigabeat any way you like. You can even design your own While Playing Screen and background images. There are also numerous plug ins, little games, and other gadgets.

UPDATE December 18th 2007

It is still working great and I have no complaints. Recently I have used Winamp to rip CDs to the lossless FLAC format and am playing them back on the road with the Gigabeat, giving much better sound quality than mp3. (This only works with Rockbox.) The only downside to this is that a single CD occupies 300 megabytes of space or about 40% of the space of a full CD, still even with hundreds of albums in mp3 format, there is still space to put on a few FLAC albums to enjoy in hi-fi.

I bought this player a few days ago from Best Buy. It was on clearance for $199. I had done a bunch of research on different WMA players from Creative, IRiver, etc... but had read very little about the Toshiba. It was a good price, it had a beautiful screen, cradle and an inline remote included in the package and that appealed to me. So I thought I would try it out.

While still at Best Buy, I actually logged onto a PC and read some of the reviews here at Amazon and on CNET. Some people raved and others called it "Quirky". I took a chance.

The box had the "Plays for Sure" logo on it, which was important to me because all my music is ripped in WMA and I use Windows Media Player exclusively.

I got it home and browsed the manual and quickly found out that if you want to used the Windows Media player to Sync, it is LIMITED TO USB 1.1 speeds. What a deal breaker. Really Toshiba what are you thinking? Ok.. ok.. I calmed down and resolved myself to a long download process, justifying to myself that when I needed to add CDs later it wouldn't be too painful.

...4-5 Hours later it finally finished loading my 9 Gigs of music. I moved the cradle and connected it to my Home Audio System, which is where I would like it to stay until my family goes on one of our frequent road trips. Well I found some more CDs around the house to RIP and plugged the Gigabeat directly into the PC with the USB cable. Now only it only comes up as a Mass Storage device compatible with the Gigabeat Room software. I went back to the manual and found out you HAVE to use the cradle if you are using Window Media Player. So if I want to update sync the player, I have to move my cradle back to the PC instead of using the USB connector on the player directly. Oh and if you think you can just copy your music directly to the Gigabeat while it is connected as a Mass Storage Device, think again, the music files have to be in the Gigabeat Encrypted format in order to be recognized.

OK, well I thought that I would give the Gigabeat Room software a try, since I didn't want to be moving my cradle back and forth. I just had a few albums to sync, so maybe it wouldn't be too painful. Wrong, the Gigabeat Room software seemed to find all the music on both my player and PC and then proceeded to start synchronizing ALL the music again. No way... I don't want to have to use two different media players.

OK... so I finally got my music on and decided to play with it a little. Here is the next Aggravating saga. The controls and user interface are atrocious. The plus pad on the front actually works allright, sort of, but here are some of the problems. You want to play an album? Press the Power button, huh?? You want to select the album press the middle of the touch cross, nope, touch the right, yep. You want to select and new equalizer? Press Menu, OK that seems to make sense. Select the new equalizer setting. Now you want to get rid of the menu? Uh, push the left cross-nope... press the menu button-nope, the power button-nope? Ok at this point you could wait exactly 1 minute to let the menu timeout or you could swipe your finger from left to right on the cross... very intuitive? NOT, its one of the secret features. These are just a few examples.

BTW, as I'm writing this, my new IRiver H10 20 Gig just finished synchronizing my entire music 9 Gig library in 45 minutes. I got so frustrated with the Toshiba that I went and picked up the IRiver to see if it was better. In short it is, I am now listening to a playlist in the H10 that I made in WMP...

OK I'm tired of ranting. The Gigabeat beat me and I'm taking it back...

PROS
-Beautiful Screen
-Docking station included
-Remote included
-Sturdy construction
-It sounds good when you play music

CONS
-Aggravating- It could be so much better
-Have to use cradle to sync with Windows Media Player
-USB 1.1 speed when using Windows Media Player to Sync
-Horrible User interface
-EQ setting are of little use

Alright, I'm somewhat crammed with homework, but I just had to give a short mini-review of the lovely Gigabeat. I'm a college student, and at 19 years old, life is pretty hectic, and so tedious walking in-between classes made me want something more. I know a lot about MP3 players, desiring on since uh...probably since I was a junior. An iPod would be nice, but I'm not even close to the definition of rich, so I decided to stick with my CD player. Eventually, I saved up enough to get myself a Christmas present, and so I traded in a 512MB iPod shuffle I got for my birthday for a Gigabeat at Costco. It was the best decision I've ever made. At 249 at Costco, which is the same price for: iPod Nano 4GB or Creative Zen Microphoto 8GB, the Gigabeat trumps those competitors with its massive size of 40GB, although its way larger than a Nano and slightly bigger than a Microphoto. The screen however, is to die for, as its 2.2" and has the same QVGA resolution as the new iPod 5th gen, but with 200,000 more colors. This thing is beggin' for video. I saw the Gigabeat X30, which sadly isn't released in the US, but rather Japan, which costs $311 on some website, is shorter than the 40 and doesn't feature the protrusion on the back of the F40, which is quite weird. I quickly installed the Gigabeat Room, and found that it was very buggy. It froze on multiple times, and it has a few other bugs (I will explain later).
THE PROS AND CONS (Rolled into One)
+The screen is amazing. What can I say? However, the sunshine's glare makes it nearly impossible to read anything, and the fonts usually "white" and if you download other QVGA wallpapers, it'll sometimes be unreadable in some spots. The Screen Themes are all cool, making it truly stand out against the iPod.
-NO VIDEO! ;( Gah! This thing is crying for video, due to its QVGA display (the same as iPod 5th gen), and its fairly large size of 2.2 (the X30's 2.4 would be even better though). It could be possible through a firmware upgrade, but Toshiba's forgotten about the US (as its already released 3.0 firmware for Japan, and THREE OTHER GIGABEATS, TWO WHO SUCUEED THE F40! The P5 and P10 are their new Japan-only Flash-players, and the F41 (which doesn't feature the protrusion), but looks exactly the same otherwise, and the X30, which I've already talked about.
+Size? This is both a pro and a con, because the new X30 is .57 thick, and the F40 is like .65, I believe. The iPod is only .43 thick, and it weighs only 4.8, while the F40 weighs 5.75 oz. I know that the X30 weighs less than the F40, but I'm not sure by how much, but it probably weighs more than the iPod. The size fits into a pocket perfectly, but it doesn't fit in any iPod case, so you'll have to either: a) find a sock and cut and sew it into the perfect shape (i did that) or b) spend $19, which includes shipping, and by from OneCall (the supplier), a zCover silicone case, which works fine.
+The Player's Shell: The casing is amazingly durable, as I've dropped the player once, from...probably 4'? and it landed smack onto thin carpet and paused for 1 sec before playing again. The shell resists against most scratches. It also feels really good in my hand, and I love the metal as it rubs against my hand.
-The Player's Shell: The metal wrapping that's a darker grey than the rest starts to squeak and very slightly, starts to move back and forth just a little, and I've only had this player for like 2 weeks. Hopefully, this doesn't mean that the player will have future problems.
+Dedicated Volume Button. That's great!
+PlusTouch: This is a minor "plus", as you actually have to not just "touch", but you have to apply force. Touching will make it sometimes move and sometimes not. Just push harder.
-PlusTouch: You begin on the first entry in Artist/Album, etc, so you'll have to scroll all over again if you go back. Also, from the top, you can't just hold the up button to go to the bottom of the list, you have to do a quick-tap to move it, then hold it down to move farther up once you reach the bottom. This is extremely aggrivating, since it requires two movements, a tap and a hold to move to the bottom of the list. Also, from the MAIN MENU (if you're playing a song), YOU CAN'T RETURN TO THE NOW PLAYING SCREEN WITHOUT SWIPING YOUR FINGER FROM LEFT TO RIGHT ACROSS THE PLUSTOUCH. PLUS!!THE MANUAL DOESN'T STATE THIS! YOU HAVE TO FIGURE IT OUT ON YOUR OWN!!
-The Side Controls: Okay, whenever my friends try to use the player, its pretty hard for them to figure it out. I mean, WHAT KIND OF DESIGNER MAKES THE ON/OFF BUTTON RETURN TO THE MAIN MENU FROM THE "Now Playing" section? You can't figure that out without having someone to tell you, or without reading the manual, or without having to try and mess with it to figure it out.
-NO USB 2.0 FOR ANYTHING BUT GIGABEAT ROOM! Toshiba is making you use GR is you want to transfer anything in USB 2.
+Subscription Services. Yay! It works with Yahoo Unlimited To Go, but unfortunately they just raised the prices from 4.99 to 9.99, so dang.
+Battery Life: Hmm. This is a tricky category. Well, I've gotten 17 hours, 24 minutes on the first overnight drain, but then, I got 15 hours 45 minutes when I actually used it at school. Toshiba says 16 hours, so I guess this is pretty close. Charging is pretty fast, and you can charge from USB, although you can't play music while charging from USB.
-CHARGING: When you are charging, the volume sudden drops dramatically like 3 steps, although it won't change on the volume screen. Once you unplug, it'll return to normal. The first time this happen to me I was like "Holy crap. These $40 Sony Fontopia in-ear 51's just died on me!", guess I was wrong.
+/-Earbuds: They don't fit my ears, and I couldn't get them to go in, but they fit my brother, so I dunno. It's just about your ear size. I just tossed them aside for my Fontopias, which have amazing quality, although they aren't worth $40, unless you're an audiophile. Normal people, just save your money and go with the stocks, if you wish, as they have okay quality (my brother says this), and they have no hissing, which is great. My brother thought they were great stocks, better than his 4th gen iPod photo, so I gave em over to him.
+Low Priced! You get 40GB for the price of either 4GB flash (iPod nano), or 8GB Microdrive (Creative Z MP), and iPod 5th gen costs 50 bucks more for a .3 bigger screen, less colors, easier navigation, but most of all, 10GB less!
7 (+), 7 (-)
THE SOFTWARE
Gawd, this software sucks. Both iTunes and WMP10 have their share of faults, but at least they ain't buggy.
+RipREC: This is a great feature, but you can only rip in WMA and in 192kbps, which is why I rarely use it. I use WMP10 to rip in MP3s in 320kbps (double the quality), and then use Gigabeat Room to transfer. The thing transfers directly to the Gigabeat, so if you have a dinky 40GB internal HD like me, you'll love this feature, although I use a flash memory key to store my music temporarily for Gigabeat Room.
-Bug #1: I planned to download "Stripped" to my Gigabeat, and so I did, after ripping it from WMP10 first. I've done it plenty of times, but this time, it made me 20 albums in Album mode, all of them being named "Christina Aguilera". However, if you go to Artists, "Christina Aguilera", it'll only list her "Stripped" album, which isn't anywhere in the Album folders. WTF??? I deleted the 20 songs, but now, you can't delete the 20 "CA" folders. I've tried and tried, even on Windows Explorer, but those folders refuse to be deleted.
-Freeze! Gigabeat Room froze constantly for me, even though I have a 2.2Ghz Toshiba laptop with 512MB memory. It sometimes recovers, but sometimes it will freeze and you'll have to "End Task". This can erase the songs you were trying to download the Gigabeat, although sometimes it won't. I was downloading The All American Rejects, when it froze midway and deleted all the songs that I had already dl'd from the album.
-The software comes up with a message everytimes you turn it on. Annoying.
-You have to go to the Gigabeat's Setup to change whether from WMP10 or GR or Choose When Start Up. The gigabeat was set on WMP10 and the manual doesn't state this clearly, at least, how to change the setting.
-TWO MANUALS! WTF? This is a major sign that you'll need a 4th grade reading level. Anyways, the major reading that you'll have to do gives a sign that this player is complex. And it is. If you don't read the manuals, using GR will be difficult, unless you're accustomed to throwing manuals away and learning on your own.
-No firmware upgrade! Japan's already got 3.0 and all we have is 2.02! Why, Toshiba, why?!
-The design and layout of the Gigabeat just sucks. It looks ugly, with some of the stuff copied from iTunes (such as the metal brushing look on the top.
+Set to All: Hey it works, and this is VERY GOOD, since in both iTunes and WMP10, you don't have this feature so you must tediously go through individual songs, instead of highlighting like the GR and just using STA.
-SAT. No, not the tests, ladies and gentlemen, although they share a common factor: they both suck. Yes, SAT is added to the end of MP3, making the songs you store on the Gigabeat locked (although you can still delete them Windows Explorer style), you can't play them anywhere else.
-SAT: PART 2: Okay, this part deserve another negative. You can't just store songs on here by draggin and droppin. So therefore, if you were planning to use this player not only to listen to your library, but to store your library (if you have a dinky HD like me 40GBs no less), you're outta luck. SAT prevents this, so if you're against this too, let's protest. However, a firmware would fix this, although, Toshiba has seem to have left us.
2 (+), 7 (-)
Conclusion: With bad software, no firmware upgrades (other than 2.0 to 2.02), the Gigabeat is bogged down with those faults. However, the player is pretty good, and is "CHEAP" (listen up if you're on a budget!). This decision is basically up to you, now, although I won't return my Gigabeat, but I'm going to call Tech once I get the time and see if they have a solution to the bugs.

Pros:
Excellent display; large HD; charging while connected to the USB port of a PC; good sound for casual listening; sofware allows bypassing a PC Hard Drive, while transfering from CD.

Cons: No way to load and listen to raw CDA and WAV files or lossless, such as FLAC or APE formats (such a huge HD and you are forced to squeeze your audio files into a highly compressed, very lossy format!) As I mentioned before, sound is good for casual listening, but lacking for a true audiophile. I would gladly pay double the price, if I could just load my music files and enjoy them without converting into all that lossy, double-extension nonsense (.wma.SAT).

The software, Gigabeat Room, is very buggy. It crashes once every hour or so and then resists termination of its process, thus requiring a system reboot. The program permits listening to your files, but you can't preview any image files you may want to load to your Gigabeat.

A couple more drawbacks: no drivers for 64-bit`operating systems. No support, no updates for the Gigabeat Room software, which needs some improvements badly and urgently). The battery is non-replaceable, so when it gets bad, you can kiss your Gigabeat
good-bye.

Conclusion. This is a pretty good product, which can bring a lot of enjoyment, provided you're not looking for a pristine audiphile-quality sound and are willing to suffer some pain of frustrations while loading it up.

Yknow, it never ceases to amaze me how differently several people can view the same product.

We love our Gigabeat. Can't really complain at all. The only thing we found is that without Gigaroom (Gigabeat's proprietary software), transferring from music on our hard drive does not work properly. Using the Windows Media Player option ends up in very slow download times and crashes/non-recognition on the Gigabeat. As long as we use "room" we're good to go and it's much much swifter than Media Player.

Also ... the "CD button" is awesome. Put the CD you want copied in your computer, have the Gigabeat hooked up to your computer via the USB cable. Press the CD transfer button. In 5 mins we've got the whole "album" transferred and we're on our way.

The screen is crisp and clear; the sound crystalline. Photos look great and it's a much much better resolution/size than most cell phones.

Add all this to the fact that we got our Gigabeat for under $150 including shipping, who could complain?

First and foremost, I was really amazed at the fast turnaround time that the seller provided me (I know that this is a review of the device, but I want everyone to know how fast Tech Depot turned around my order and had the box at my door).
Now that I have that out of the way, some thoughts on the device itself.

The Good:
#1) The aesthetics are superb. In my opinion, it just looks better than any other similar products around. I really like the brushed metal around the display. The 4-direction control on the face is much more visually appealing to me than other devices in the market.
#2) The full color display is really awesome. I like how I can view album covers and digital photos in full color.
#3) The storage capacity is excellent. For the price, nobody comes close to providing as much storage in as attractive a package. I also like that when I have it connected to my computer, I can view all of the files on it using Windows Explorer. I also have a lot of flexibility in how to put files onto the device. I can use Windows Media Player or the supplied Gigabeat Room software.
#4) The docking cradle is cool. I don't have to worry about wires dropping behind my desk when I have the device in my car or I'm at the gym. They're connected to the docking cradle and the line out gives me connection flexibility with cables and stereos that I already own.
#5) Battery Life. I haven't charged the device in a few days and I still have full battery life. I've been using it on a consistent basis too.

The Not as Good:
#1) The device comes pre-set to use the Toshiba software when connected with just the USB and Windows Media Player when connected through the docking cradle. You can change the settings in the player's internal menus, but you definitely need to search around a little bit first. I figure that Toshiba should try to put the focus on its own software before it defaults to Windows.
#2) I can't seem to find a lot of Gigabeat accessories available. I'd really like to see a car-charging cradle and an arm-band for the gym.
#3) Gigabeat Room has a slow learning curve, and occasionally, you need to tinker around with the docking cradle when using the 'RipRec' feature to load entire CDs onto the device.
#4) The instruction manual doesn't offer much help in navigating the device's internal menus, and you have to do a little trial and error to get the player set to your preferences. There is an up-side though, now that I have navigated the menus, I have set up the controls to my preferences and I can change them when and if I want to.
#5) It's a little bit big, and a little heavy. From what I can tell, most of the weight is in the battery, so I guess I can't complain.

Overall, it looks like Toshiba put its R&D into making a player that is a superb player from the audio tech-sheet aspect. The sound reproduction is excellent and I don't need to purchase any additional devices (like an iPod-only stereo, or a special iPod-only cradle) to connect to a stereo. There is a line-out on the docking cradle that can use a standard 1/8" Stereo Y cable to connect to an open RCA input on my stereo. In terms of the competition, it sounds better because the electronics built into the device are designed for audio. The drawback to the R&D focus going to the music (which I just said wasn't so much a bad thing), is that the menu systems to access the music are a little bit complex when you first attempt to load music onto the product.

I strongly recommend this device over anything else out there on the market.