Customer Reviews

Toshiba Gigabeat MEG-F60S 60 GB Digital Audio Player Dark Grey

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I've had the Gigabeat F60S for about a week now. I don't subscribe to a downloading service. I simply rip my CDs into mp3 files and organize the files into folders. So far this player has performed flawlessly. As a comparison I had an iRiver H10 20GB player (which I returned), and I also use a Samsung YP-MT6 1GB flashmemory player. I use Sony's MDR-EX51LP earphones.

Build Quality:
Quality built aluminum alloy body feels solid and durable in your hand. Glass to cover the LCD screen which seems to be reasonably scratch resistant (some ipod owners have complained about easily getting scratches on the screens). The 60GB hard drive is built by Toshiba. It's assembled/made in China as is the iRiver H10 and Samsung.

Sound Quality:
The Toshiba has excellent sound quality and EQ options. The little Samsung has the same excellent quality sound plus some added EQ options the Toshiba and iRiver don't have. The iRiver had very good sound, however it seemed slightly "muddy" to me and the sound imagery of various instuments were not quite as focused as in the Toshiba and Samsung players. Perhaps tweeking with the EQ settings would have improved the iRivers sound. I experienced no detectable background hissing during quiet passages and no distortion at loud sound levels. I kept all settings flat.

Screen:
WOW! Very impressive. The 2.2 inch 320 X 240 resolution screen is absolutely beautiful. State of the art, crisp, clear, bright vivid colors. The iRiver's screen was a disapointment. Like comparing a 42 inch High Definition widescreen plasma TV to a regular 20 inch TV. Lots of ways to customize the screen. Can be displayed vertcally (portrait) or horizontally (landscape). Many ways to customize the way track info and album art is displayed on your screen.

Navigation:
Ergonomics of the Toshiba was much better than the iRiver. I really like the "Plus Touch" device for navigation. It works great--very intuitive. The iRiver's vertical slide was a bit quirky for me and seemed to attract dirt. Never used an ipod, so I can't make a comparison there. I simply use the folder method to organize my files in the player and with the gigabeat I can navigate through my files just like in Windows Explorer. Another big difference was the speed with which the Toshiba could navigate through the different folder levels. Going to the next folder level was practically instantanious. The iRiver would delay 2-3 seconds before going to the next level of folders. Sizewize, the Gigabeat was about 3 mm longer than the iRiver and about the same thickness and width.

Software:
You can use either Gigabeat Room or Windows Media Player 10 to transfer and manage your music. You MUST use one or the other to tranfer PLAYABLE music files to your Gigabeat. Yes, you can drag and drop any kind of file type onto your Gigabeat via Windows Explorer for mass storage, however only music files that were transfered via Gigabeat Room or WMP10 will be able to play on the gigabeat. Photos will only be viewable when transfered via Gigabeat Room. I prefer using Gigabeat Room--it is very intuitive and performs perfectly with my computer. Album art and id3 tag info can be modified through the Tool/Music information edit.. menu in Gigabeat Room. When you plug the Gigabeat into your computer either though the supplied usb cable or the supplied cradle, the Gigabeat will show up as another letter hard drive device in the My Computer screen. You can access, navigate, organize, and delete your files through Windows Explorer by double clicking the hard drive icon in My Computer, however before any changes will take effect you must "Refresh" the Gigabeat library by going to the Tool/Library Refresh menu in Gigabeat Room. The only minor gripe about Gigabeat Room is there is no progress bar to indicate how much time is left for the transfer of files from my PC to the Gigabeat.

Downloading directly to the Gigabeat:
A very nice feature is that you can download files directly to the Gigabeat from external devices like digital cameras while being away from your PC or laptop computer. I had no problem downloading my pictures from my camera directly into the gigabeat via the supplied cradle. You can take the gigabeat with you on trips to use as a storage device for your photos instead of lugging around a laptop computer.

PROS:
1. Great Sound quality.
2. Best screen in the business.
3. Solid quality construction with an elegant classy design.
4. Very nice intuitive navigation using the Touch Plus.
5. Direct downloading from other devices to the Gigabeat.
6. Gigabeat Room is intuitive and easy to use software.
7. Simple CD rip and transfer feature via Gigabeat Room.
8. Shows up as hard drive for use as mass storage device.
9. Simple to add album art to music files.
10. Slide show during music playback.
11. 60 GB! Great storage device.
12. No bugs, crashes or shutdowns. Everything works smoothly and flawlessly.

CONS:
1. Photo management is poor. Photos can not be organized into folders. ONLY one folder for ALL your photos.
2. I really wanted something that has true drag and drop file management like my 1 GB Samsung but with 40+ GB of storage. The Gigabeat is not a true drag and drop player because music files must be .SAT encoded and photos must be modified by the software before they can be played on the Gigabeat.
3. USB 1.1 transfer rate if you use MWP 10.
4. No progress bar in Gigabeat Room.
5. No FM radio.
6. No voice recorder.
7. No inline recording.
8. No video. (What a shame with such an awsome screen)

Bottom Line:
After doing tons of research, this Toshiba was the best fit for me. I'm very happy and satisfied that I bought this player. I would have given it a 5 star rating if it had better photo management, and true drag and drop ability without the .SAT encoding and need to modify the photos prior to transfering.

For the price, this Toshiba is a serious contender to the the 60 GB iPod Photo. The Toshiba has awsome sound quality, the best screen available, and a slick interface. I hope that Toshiba addresses some of the minor shortcommings with a firmware/software upgrade. The only other player I considered was the Cowan iAudio X5L 30GB. But, couldn't find a store to check one out.

Given both the limited amount of reviews here so far about the Gigabeat, and given the mammoth size headache/mistake I had in purchasing one, an honest review to help anyone thinking about the 'Beat.

Firstly, this review comes from someone who waited for at least a year and a half for the price of 60gb mp3 players to go down. And from someone who disliked in general the "Big Brother" & "We are your friend" approach of Apple & their iPod.
As one might gleam from the above, I was ecstatic about the opportunity to buy a non-iPod 60gb mammoth to call my own. After some research, I really figured it would be worth it even though a couple of well-known sites gave it really dismal marks, I was willing to chunk it off to reviewers too awed by Apple.

I was wrong.

Exactly everything and more from their reviews were correct. A small list:

#1 - And most glaringly atrocious is the software Toshiba designed in order to 'protect' any music one uploads. With the Gigabeat, Toshiba has all but virtually made it impossible to put YOUR mp3 files onto YOUR mp3 player and ever hope to then get YOUR mp3 files back onto your hard drive in mp3 format. Why? Because the player will encrypt everyone of your files into a format dubbed .SAT, which is unreadable by any media player for any computer. Exactly so that the question of ever sharing or anything like that is out of the question with Gigabeat.
Mp3 in; SAT out = Readable in / Unreadable out


Sure, if you spend hours looking for how to get around that encryption on the Web, you'll find that the solution just as undesirable. Namely that if you connect through Windows Media Player 10 instead of the Toshiba Gigabeat Room software, you can then ignore the WMP aspect of it and proceed to drag&drop files onto it like a external hard drive. With a HUGE catch: Only while docked in the units cradle; which ONLY can process such transfers at USB 1.0 speed, not the standard 2.0

I actually was desperate enough that I actually did this and in all truth: On a 3.2 gigahertz Dell computer, transferring my collection of 23 gigabytes came back with a waiting screen of 26 hours. I'm not even BS-ing. If you could do it normally with USB 2.0 that time would be 3 hours at tops. And if you ever wanted to get those files back onto your computer the same thing applies.

#2 - One of the reviews I read bashed the sound quality output of the player, but then also followed up with how good iPod was in contrast. I naturally disregarded the information. Wrong.
Wrong.
The output is atrocious; almost anything you will have sounds like it's in a very open room. And no, my mp3s are not of crappy 128 KPS. And forget about the equalizer settings...they are as equally horrid.


#3 - Finally the interface was simply put, terribly designed. Just trying to find the pinky size pause button for instance, located in the middle of the gigabeat cross-pad, and successfully hitting it without either turning up the volume/switching tracks became a unpleasant game of hit-or-miss every time. And that every time added up immensely.

There perhaps will be a day when some bright someone will devise a hack for the gigabeat that will make it overcome encrypting one's files, but that day remains to be seen and even if it were to happen, the interface/poor sound performance would still drag it down at every turn.

Do yourself a favor and avoid at all costs.

Let me start by saying that I have never owned or even used an Ipod. Not that I don't think it's a great product, but I have all of my music copied onto my PC in the WMA format, which I much prefer over MP3. From what I understand the Ipod, at least at the point in time I was looking, did not support the WMA format. So I was looking for an alternative.

I came across this player at Costco. I studied up on it a little, read one or two reviews, and decided to give it a shot. It met my primary requirement of being able to hold my entire 600+ CD collection. I was looking for a player to use at home (so I don't have to dig for my CD's all the time) and for travel (so I don't have to carry a book of CD's on vacation).

I brought this home, plugged it in, hooked it up to my PC and the display instantly displayed that it was connecting to Windows Media Player 10. A box popped up on my screen and asked if I wanted to sync this device to my music library. I chose yes. Windows started to copy all 6000+ songs that were currently on my PC into the Gigabeat. I left it to it's task overnight and when I woke up my music library had been transferred to the Gigabeat. Effortless. Painless. I never even installed Gigabeat room, which is the software everyone complains about. When you have Windows Media Player 10 or Napster you don't even need it.

Now came my listening experience. I've had mine for around 2 months now. Most of the time it's plugged into my home stereo where it acts as a massive Jukebox. It has a "play all" mode where it starts wherever you tell it to and plays everything in order from that point, a random all mode (I usually use it this way, and half of the time I have no idea what I'm listening to. I'd forgotten I owned so much music!), and a few other modes like random album, etc.

The sound quality is great, but to make it even better there are numerous pre-set equalizers to choose from. If you have the time (which I do not) you can even pre-program a specific EQ setting for every album in the player.

One of the other reviews I have read stated that you cannot fast forward and rewind the tracks. I can understand how they might assume this as everything is controlled by a four way touch sensor, however, that is hardly the case. If they had either a little more imagination or the sense to at least peruse the manual they would see that the controls are quite intuitive. Tap the touch sensor to the left or right and it will skip tracks forward or back. Press and HOLD the sensor either left or right and it will fast forward or rewind. And the menus allow you to customize the touch controls even further if you desire.

Another correction to a previous reviewers comments is that music is not only categorized by album. Songs can be found in many ways. Songs are stored by album, artist, genre, and a few other categories. You simply select the appropriate category. Looking for a particular song? Select the artist and all of the songs by that artist will be displayed. Select the one you want. Again the menus and conrols are very intuitive. And the color screen makes it a pleasure to use.

I have not used the ear buds so I cannot attest as to the comfort level of those. However, when was the last time you purchased an MP3 player based on the comfort of the included headgear?

Now, I must admit that there are a few cons to this magnificient device. The primary one for me is that only the first artist/genre/etc listed in Windows Media will copy into the Gigabeat. Meaning that if you have your music broken down into many categories anything that you have more than category for (i.e. I have Hooverphonic listed as Downtempo and as Electronica) will only be listed under the first category in the Gigabeat. Same goes for Artist. If a song is a collaberation between two bands only the first band will be listed in the Gigabeat (which means you can't find the song by searching for the second artist, so make sure the artist you know is lested first). This is not typcally a problem but I am a little particular.

The other con is that you have to have the Gigabeat power cord plugged in to be able to connect to your computer. The USB does not power the cradle. And you have to use the cradle to use Windows Media or Napster. The only reason this is a problem is that I use my Gigabeat on my home stereo. So I have it plugged in back there. To add my new music to the player I have to reach back behind the stereo, unplug the player, and then plug it back in in my office. Call me lazy, but it annoys me.

Anyway, neither of these cons in the least way makes me love my Gigabeat any less. I think it's the best thing since sliced bread. Or in my wife's words "This is the coolest thing we own!"

I cannot stress too strongly how wrong most reviews of the GIGABEAT are. This player rocks in every way. The manual states music put onto this device cannot be brought back to the PC - This is not true. The SAT encoding is merely a name change when the GIGABEAT ROOM device drivers are running. Just plug in as WMP mode and all your files can be copied back to the PC without a single issue. I think TOSHIBA are not telling U.S. customers this directly because they are worried about being a big target for over zealous rights lawyers.

(...)
This most important thing for me was the player can display UNICODE character sets properly as I have a great deal of non-western music. In this respect the GIGABEAT trashes the competition. The iPod just used to make up distorted filenames for my Japanese CDs - the GIGABEAT simply names everything correctly.
The only downside to the GIGABEAT is the in-line remote control - it feels pretty cheap. But, the build quality of the player and the new version of GIGABEAT ROOM software are excellent.

I have begun hacking this device in an attempt to add new features - looks like video playback and tools are only weeks away now! Just think what DOOM/QUAKE will look like on this player! The GBSYSTEM folder is hidden in GIGABEAT ROOM transfer mode, but can be copied to the PC for scrutiny. If you don't know what you are doing then don't look at this or you may temporarily brick your player. If you do then the GIGABEAT ROOM formatter will soon get you going again (minus music of course)

This review is only about the F60S - I have played with the 10-20-40 in Best-Denki in Kumamoto Japan over the new year and they seemed exactly the same to me except for the external colour range, HDD capacity, and lack of dock and remote in the box for the 10&20 range. However, I don't want to recommend those without a more thorough testing.

Don't think about it buy it - the best DA player is available and it's a Toshiba.

Reading some of these reviews leads me to believe Toshiba sales folks add reviews. This player has potential but really suffers in certain areas.

Adding music is horrible. Because you can't drag and drop and the Media Player 10 option is slower than slow you have to add music by checking boxes which means you have to scroll entire files alphabetically...hunt and peck. Adding a CD or two to your MP3 player can take up to an hour. The dude below says you can update by using the My Computer option which would be nice if the SAT allowed you to see TAGS. The file only shows song title so you simply have to guess the rest.

The software is highly buggy. Certain songs will completely crash your system and I have experienced random crashes during upload. This leaves the system un-updated which means you have to start all over again. It also prompts you when a song is not acceptable which means when you upload, you can't leave the computer until this happens otherwise it will stop uploading while you think its performing.

Finding music is really tough unless you happen to know what album the song lives on. You cannot scroll by song unless you arrange the folders by alphabet. But say I want to hear Ramble on by Zep. If you go to Artist or Genre, you need to know the album. If you scroll by File, you need to remember that it lives in a folder that you have named. With 60GB of music, this can be tough. They need to update a scroll by song option.

Playing songs also lack. I like to play random all to have my own personal radio station but I would like the option to Random by genre or artist from time to time. This player does not allow that option. You can only random everysong or random by album...lame.

On the upside, it sounds nice and looks snazzy. Haven't been able to figure out how to get album art on the player but someone here says its possble. I tried the process he spoke of but hit a dead end. Scroll on this player is so so. It is fast but I often have to press a few times to get what I want. Finally, the remote is adequate but far from great. I would love a remote that showed you what you were listening to with tag info (iRiver has a great one).

I have owned an Ipod, an iRiver and this and they all need work. Ipod was cool but couldn't handle jogging/bike riding which is why I bought it. It also broke when it fell from a 1ft ledge. Rather fragile.

iRiver was probaly the best here but it had horrible scroll options, was a bit bulky and it didn't sound very good. Their customer service is really bad. You can't get someone on the phone let alone leave a message and they have not responded to three of my warranty emails.

My advice...either wait to see if Toshiba will clean this up or wait another year till one of these guys gets it right.

I was uncertain about getting the Toshiba Gigabeat, it being such a new player on the market. Thus far, I have been pleasantly surprised. The sound quality is excellent, it comes with handy features like the cradle and the remote control, and it has an amazing LCD display significantly larger than the ipod. I also like the variety of different "themes" you can add to the player's LCD screen to personlize it. My only complaint is with the software, which has some definite bugs to work out(make sure you're in library view to create playlists & photo browser to add/delete photos). Otherwise, a great little device!

I usually pass off overly negative reviews as from competitor shills and overly glowing as coming from manufacturer shills. As for the player itself, yes it is not for people who share music. Anyway, I paid good money for my music and I am not about to give it away,but for people like me who want a simple and easy to use( you have to be pretty simpleminded if you have to call support six times for this unit) device that lets you download all or part of a cd at a push of a button. The only real con is the Photo option, but i new that going in. Music quality wise, I have over 800 full albums and still have plenty of room for more and they sound great over headphones and through my stereo.Definately recommend.

I can't stress how aweful this player is and the service that backs it. I have owned Ipod and Iriver and thought I'd try this as it has larger storage than anything I could find. First the unit itself:

Super long upload time and the software is so buggy that it crashed a lot, froze out, and uploaded songs but would not play them. The worst part is there is no warning that anything went wrong so you can't just leave the computer and pick it up later. You literally have to watch the whole long tedious process in order to ensure that everything is fine. I ended up putting all my songs in seperate alphabetical folders and loaded one folder at a time to find the issues.

When you finally get the songs in, there are many issues. All songs are listed by album so unless you know what album a particular song is on, good luck finding your tunes. The scroll dial is not touch sensative along the cross path...it is simply 4 buttons on the ends. This makes for tedious scrolling and you often end up hitting the wrong channels sending you in all kinds of menu channels that you have to work your way out of.

I have a ton of songs and different genres but this player does not let you enjoy them. You cannot play random by artist or genre. You can either random everything or random album...really sucks. If you want to just listen to say Alternative, you must play according to alphabetical order. Other issues include horrible remote with no data screen, using save battery mode deletes your preferences, all songs are coverted to SAT which makes transfering back tedious, no drag and drop, no volume compensator so some songs sound light while others blow your ears out and no carrying case so the screen will get scratched eventually.

How's the customer service? After spending hours trying to figure out why the player kept crashing and hours on hold getting Customer Service, I was finally told that my computer is not compatible. I have a new Pentium 4 system with XP professional...what a cop out. I was told to buy a new computer. I dealt with it until a month in the player simply died. I turned it on, it played 5 seconds of a song then went blank and would not turn back on. Spent another 30 minutes on hold and before I could even state my case, Leo the CS supervisor said, "I have seen your file and you are not getting your money back." I also heard "It's not our problem, it's yours" and when I asked how he would feel if in my shoes, "It's irrelevant...it's your problem."

Seriously folks...this is one of the worst MP3 products on the market and if you run into any issues along the way, good luck. I would stick with the iRiver which has tons of great features (although I wish they would offer a 60gb and better random play options).

DOWNLOADING FROM A FIVE YEAR OLD LAPTOP WAS CAKE ON MY NEW MEG-F60S. YEA, SURE IT TAKES A WHILE WITH WINDOWS MEDIA 10 BUT ONCE YOU GET THE HANG OF TRANSFERRING YOUR FILES IT'S NOT SUCH A BIG DEAL. TOSHIBA'S SOFTWARE YOU CAN TOSS, I FOUND WINDOWS MEDIA MORE USER FRIENDLY AND CHANGING OPTIONS TO FORMAT YOUR FILES IS A BREEZE. THE SOUND QUALITY IS MUCH BETTER THAN MY IRIVER H340 WHICH HAS BEEN SUDDENLY DISCONTINUED WITH ONLY A SHORT TIME ON THE MARKET. THE STANDARD EQ SETTINGS ARE EXCELLENT AND YOU CAN PERSONALIZE THE SOUND EVEN MORE WITH YOUR OWN USER SETTINGS. THE LCD DISPLAY IS PROBABLY ONE OF THE BEST ON THE MARKET. EVEN BRIGHT SUNLIGHT DOESN'T HAVE MUCH EFFECT ON THE DISPLAY. TERRIFIC WALLPAPER AND BACKGROUND CHANGES MAKE LISTENING TO THE GIGABEAT A VISUAL PLEASURE. THE UNIT IS SLEEK AND DURABLE BUT IT WOULD BE NICE FOR TOSHIBA TO COME UP WITH A FEW CASE ACCESSORIES. THE EARPHONES WHICH CAME WITH THE GIGABEAT I FOUND A LITTLE UNCOMFORTABLE SO I WENT WITH A PAIR OF SONY'S EARBUDS WHICH ISOLATE THE OUTSIDE ENVIRONMENT AND ADD ALL THE BASS YOU WANT. FROM JAZZ TO METAL THIS UNIT HAS COME THROUGH WITH FIVE STARS. BATTERY LIFE IS EXCEPTIONAL EVEN WHEN THE LCD SCREEN IS SET TO "ALWAYS ON". I DON'T MISS MY IRIVER AT ALL...THANK YOU TOSHIBA!!!

A previous person mentioned that it doesn't let you put your MP3 music on without going through hoops. This is true. Fortunately I don't have a lot of downloaded music. I put my downloaded music on a cd then ripped it again to the Gigabeat and it made a folder and lets me listen to it.

BUT ON TO MY STORY OF WHY I RATED IT ONLY - 1

I purchased my Gigabeat in November. I struggled to get the music on but finally found the right combination to get it to work. I had a great time listening to whatever I wanted for two months.

Then one day I decided to make a few play lists in the Gigabeat room. As I was choosing what songs I wanted in my play lists it stopped talking to the Gigabeat and then the software crashed. When I looked at my Gigabeat I noticed that it said ZERO for number of files. All my music was gone.

I attempted to put the music back on but no matter what I did the software would not talk to the Gigabeat. It crashed every time I attempted to click on the Gigabeat icon.

I called customer service (who acted like I was bothering them) and they suggested that I re-install the software. A couple days later (after finding the software) I re-installed the software. It did help. It would now let me click on the Gigabeat icon and not crash.

But low and behold the entire list of music showed it was still on the Gigabeat. It was still there the Gigabeat just wouldn't show it to me to play. So, I call customer service (again they acted like "why are you bothering me?") they suggested that I reformat the thing. After having to pull teeth to find out how to do that...it worked. I was able to put my music back on. But I had to do it one artist at a time. If I did more it would show it on there in the Gigabeat room but wouldn't show it to me to play. This took hours. I am afraid to use the Gigabeat room. I never could use Windows Media Player like it suggested either.

This thing plays wonderfully. I love the fact that I don't have to convert my files to another format. It's easy to use once it shows you your music. But you never know when it will fail on you. And I am really surprised by the attitude of their phone support.