Customer Reviews

Toshiba MEV30K Gigabeat V 30 GB Portable Media Player

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I had this player for about 2 weeks and I really like it. I personally think the design is pretty good, with a large 3.5 inch screen on the left and controls on the right.It plays music, videos ,photos, and tv. This is a very good player but has lots of CONs as well. If you are willing to make acrifices, then buy this.

PRO's:
- Large Screen, good screen quality(Despite what CNET says)
- Cheaply priced
- Comes with all accesesories
- 30 Gigs enough space for most ppl
- Superb Sound Quality (You don't even need to change the equalizer)
- Built in speakers (really useful if u dont wanna use headphones)
- Cool interface (like windows)and very easy to use
- Easily integrates with Windows Media Player 10 (you access the player using it, sorta like itunes)or you can access it like a hard drive

Cons:
- Quite large and heavy (well not that heavy), but if you want a more mobile mp3 player get n ipod.
- Quite Fragile. If you drop it the sie of the case might crack.
- Cannot make playlists in the player, playlists have to be made in windows media player 10.
- Can't charge via usb, and can't charge and access computer at the same time.
- The battery life isn't as long as advertised (30 hours music and 8 video). But I heard after you first get it the battery life is short, but as you use it and recharge it it becomes longer over time. And i've tested this and appears to be true.
- Only support .wmv file videos, so if you want to watch yourmovies you have to convert first to .wmv.

Wow. I am thoroughly impressed with this. I love it, almost everything about it. Let's start with the simple things.
The Windows it runs, Windows Mobile, is brilliant and simplistic. It is better, and easier to use, than the operating system for the iPod designed by Mac, and so far, the best I've used.
The buttons, though more numerous than most players, actually makes it easier to use, for example, individual volume, play, fast forward and rewind buttons mean that you can do any of those actions without going to some 'now playing' screen.
About the screen. It is beautiful, crisp, and almost never tones down the quality of the picture. One of the few complaints I have about my Gigabeat is the the album cover pictures are a bit pixellated, which I think is because of where they are sourced off of Windows Media Player.
Yes, it uses Windows Media Player. Have all your songs on iTunes? Changing them is no problem. The one problem with Media Player is that the image files don't automatically synchronize with the ones on programs like Photoshop, Shutterfly, and Picasa. As a result, you have to be careful about naming (if you like your files nice and organized like me).
Most likely one of my favorite things about my Gigabeat, hardly mentioned when I read user and website reviews, is the external speakers. If no ones around, I don't have to use headphones, I can just unplug them and use speakers. The speaker is built in, and small, but it is crisper, more compact, and louder than the ones you have to pay extra for on your iPod.
The video is a problem and a solution, which I'm sure, to you, makes no sense. It only supports .wmv. For anyone who doesn't understand what a problem that is, very few videos are .wmv format, and to change it, you either need professional or illegal software. BUT there is hope. Vongo (you get a free trial with your Gigabeat) is a ten dollar a month service that gives you unlimited movie downloads. AND it's in .wmv. Personally, an answer to my prayers. The selection is limited, but there are enough movies to keep you occupied. They have all the James Bond movies, for example (except really recent ones like Casino Royale).
Now I know you're not sold on Vongo, I wouldn't be either, but the Gigabeat has got a huge, and I mean mammoth ace up its sleeve. Just like external speakers come free, so does a T.V. hook up cable. You can watch videos, pictures, and listen to music from your T.V. So with Vongo, you download the movie you want, put it on your Gigabeat, and take it to your friends house, and you can watch it. And you can carry a max of 60 movies (the file sizes vary). Imagine how many cases that would be.
Now, a problem I have with my Gigabeat is not its large size, but the fact that nobody, NOBODY, makes a case specifically for this model. I have searched all over, and all I can find are ugly generic cases. I had to get my grandmother, a tailor, make one out of velvet and satin (it doesn't look bad I must say.)
I searched for a while, but I settled with this. I searched countless brands-Apple, Samsung, Wolverine, iAudio, iRiver, Cowon, Archos, Microsoft (they make the Zune), just to name a handful. But this was by far the best. The best thing about it though, was not how ingenius it was, but for what price it delivers all of this. 165 dollars. ONE-HUNDRED AND SIXTY FIVE DOLLARS. Comparable players of this caliber are anywhere from 500-800 dollars.
All in all, I am pleased with my Gigabeat. Very pleased. Never before had I any faith in an MP3 player (excuse me, it's a 'portable media center') and now I don't need to, because I found one, and, as we all know, 'one is all you need.

I may have overdone my research before I bought this player. I was afraid that it would be really large and thick...yes it is larger and thicker than most HD players; but, not by much. In fact, the size makes handling the device a lot easier. The controls are placed nicely so that virtually all buttons are within reach of your fingers. You do, however, have to be right handed or be willing to learn to use it with your right hand.

BTW, I bought a Zune recently and found it to be a nice device; however, I couldn't find 30 gigs of stuff that I was willing to tote around. I tried using the Zune to carry regular files; but, it was not possible without a registry hack. Even with the registry hack I could not use the Zune as a simple external hard drive. It appears Microsoft has done an excellent job of dumbing down a perfectly great media player. For those wondering whether the MEV30K can simply mount as a hard drive the answer is a resounding YES. BTW, there is a weird "reserve space" function for non-multimedia files...don't bother. The entire balance of the hard disk is available for your use. [Update: I love the MEV30K so much that I returned the Zune.]

One really neat discovery...you can charge this device through USB port if you have a USB cable that terminates with a power tip. I used the cable that was for my now dead HP iPAQ PDA/phone. Charging takes a lot longer than 6 hours; but, it is possible!

First of all, let me point out that you *CAN* simply drag-and-drop files from your Windows Explorer to the folders on the Toshiba gigabeat V. However, if you do this, you may not be able to get extra tag info such as album art.

Now the review.

The Toshiba gigabeta V is a portable media center player; "portable media center" refers to the platform Microsoft has built for devices that can play video, audio, pictures, recorded TV, etc. The V competes with "full-sized" media centers from Creative and Archos, and it's *not* a slim, feather-weight media player like the latest iPods. On the other hand, it's got a biggish, very bright LCD screen (QVGA resolution) and a 1.8-inch shock-mounted 30GB (27.7GB reported by Windows) hard disk. Because the hard disk appears as just another external storage to Windows, you can use the V as a portable hard drive.

The buttons on the V are pleasant to press and are quite intuitive. The placement of the skip and play/pause buttons (on the top) is unconventional. The V has a monoaural speaker, which I love because I can enjoy music-on-the-go together with my toddler Charlie. (I play lots of classical music to him.) The sound quality on the V is just excellent: a lot of range, and a lot of volume.

With the battery, which lasts around 18 hours playing back 128kbps-encoded MP3 files in real life (and Toshiba claims up to 9 hours for video playback), the unit weighs in at 7.7 oz, so it's not lightweight, and its bulky physical size makes it just okay to fit in a men's trouser pocket, or in a jacket pocket. The styling is neat, though, and it's not something you'll ever feel embarassed about showing to your friends.

What's not so good about the package is the Microsoft software that drives the thing. The portable media center on the device itself tries to be friendly and, for basic operations, it's not too bad. But when you try to do anything beyond just play/pause/power off, it gets annoying. For example, it's almost impossible to use playlists. Also, it's impossible to delete files on the device; you'll have to use Windows Explorer or Windows Media Player. Speaking of the latter, the manual says you should install the WMP 10 on the enclosed CD-ROM regardless of what WMP you already have on your PC. I already have WPM 11 on my XP computer, and no file was installed: the V played well (or as well as it could play) with WMP 11.

Of course, Windows Media Player is not a totally user-friendly piece of software, despite numerous UI improvements over the versions. Sync'ing can still freeze the program, and the most annoying part of WMP is it tries to pull all media files on your hard drive together, including temporary internet files you may have downloaded. Editing tags is still a pain in the butt. After you sync, it's not entirely clear, at least not at first, how you manage the files synced to your V.

But if you're willing entrust your library of music, videos and pictures to WMP, you can probably avoid worrying about the sync details. If you, like me, want to have some control over which and how files are sync'ed, you'll run into a lot of frustrating moments.

Overall, the V is a good media player -- and I really like the built-in speaker feature. It lacks some features found on other players, like FM or recording, but it has a decent TV-out feature that lets you play video and audio on a TV set. The screen is gorgeous, and that makes the overall UI experience a pleasure on a day-to-day basis. Oh, did I mention the V has great sound quality? (I know it because I'm a classical music lover and demand the highest audio quality.)

BTW, the V has been discontinued, which means you can find it at great prices.

I just wanted an MP3 player. This thing blew my mind. 30GB MP3 player with video, works with Windows Media Player, comes with all the cables and software. I have over 2000 songs and 25 music videos loaded into it, plus 3 episodes of Dark Angel and I've used less than a third of the memory. Adjustable brightness, equalizer, shuffle... headphone jack for cassette adapter or headphones, plus a little external speaker if you don't have earbuds... but you do, because it comes with those, too. 8 hours of video playback from a single charge! Navigate by song title, artist, album title, genre, or create a quicklist of ur favorites. with video; sort by source, name, or date. There is an option for TV but I haven't used it...you can also uplaod pictures, using windows media player... I LOVE my Gigabeat!!!! get one RIGHT NOW!!
Seriously, you want this thing.

I have purchased this device for 4 days. This is a nice little machine. It fits perfectly in my palm and the volumn of the built in speaker is pretty nice. The buttons are pretty neat. Easy to use and the interface is awesome.

Yes, I like the look of the machine. Let's talk about the downside. First of all, I am unable to set up a connection with my Toshiba notebook (VISTA 32bit). I have tried the CD that comes with it, it doesn't work on Vista. I tried to find the driver from Toshiba's website.. well they don't have it too...

Alright, you don't support new machine, I will deal with it. I connect it to my old Windows XP notebook and it works fine. MP3 and pictures are great with it. When I try to put WMV videos in it, somehow it doesn't support the frame rate of the videos.. Then I tried to use some other software to convert to a lower framerate... it end up the video lags every 5 second... I believe it's because the length of the video is too long? (120 minutes)

I was so excited about the machine. But now I am kind of disappoited. The support is not enough. And the user manual didn't really help. I have been a Toshiba fanboy for a long time but this time they really disappointed me.

This is one of the best players in the world. It can hold so much and while it seems like the thumb control would break, it has lasted a lot of wear and tear. The speaker is a great addition and the large memory, battery, and screen are very helpful. I would highly recommend this player to anyone with the great price!! Toshiba has standards that Apple or anyother companies have. BUY IT!!!

This is the best music/video player on the market for less than $200. At 30gb it can hold movies and music files without any problems. It is easy to use. I had already had an Ipod and was looking for something different to not be tied to Itunes or any particular provider. It is easy to use. I bought one for myself Feb 2007 and one for my daughter Mar 2007 who is 8 and use it proficiently. You can play and download music/videos from a variety of websites. I use AmazonUnbox for movies because you can download to two portable and two PC devices. Sometimes I use Vongo. I use CDs/Walmart and other websites for music. The only weakness is that this version does not have a radio. You have to buy the 60gb version to get the radio. But we like the built in speaker feature and long battery life. Also note, we found one cheaper by looking who is selling (at that point in time Beach Camera) on Amazon and then purchasing the item directly from their website.

We bought it as a replacement for a broken Gigabeat F40. Strangely, we bought this for $205, now it's about $60 more expensive! When do prices on electronics go UP?!!! This is a 2.5" hard drive based system. The current trend is to use flash memory and that'll catch up to the 30gig level soon enough, but for now... well this is pretty darn good.

Pros: It has lots of capacity. I haven't gotten over the 8 gig level yet, but then I'm using it as a glorified MP3 player. For movies, I've started using DVDFab Platinum that will convert my DVD's to WMV (Have to use the Zune setting). Works great. The interface is fine. I like the software for the most part.

Cons: Here we go. First off, the software on the Gigabeat is fine, it's the Windows Media Player 11 that likes to take command and do things you didn't tell it to do. They call it "sync" but you don't have any control over what sync's or how it does it if you just plug it in. It'll do it in the background. Took it to work and the Media Player there DELETED everything on my Gigabeat and wanted to put the songs I had there onto the Gigabeat. That sucked.

More Cons: The white bezel piece is a thinner plastic than that plastic wrap they put in the bubble packaging. It broke in three places from 'normal' handling. I baby my equipment, but it just takes a little bump. You can't drop this thing from one inch let alone if I had really dropped it.

Still More Cons: The battery wouldn't keep it running that long if you did any intensive searching or fiddling. It was fine if you set it and then just listened to the shuffle, but it really drained it if you hunted for the songs you wanted. It had about half the battery life I had expected.

Even More Cons: Well, the straw that broke the broken bezeled, short battery-lifed wonder-toy of my daughter's was the headphone jack. It went out after two months of use. It gave us fits on and off for about a week prior to quitting altogether. We were in the process of moving and decided to get her a phone with MP3 player functionality. She hasn't looked back (It's the MUZIQ, BTW, and she loves it).

Well, that's not the end of the story. Finally moved and settled in, dug out the MEV30K and called Toshiba. They promptly gave me an RMA number and I sent the unit off for repair. Thank you, Amazon, for having a reciept online I could print up... I didn't have one from when I bought it. Anyway, about a week and a half after sending it in, it came back with new bezels, a new board, and all of my kid's music still on there. Well, now it's got my music.

Bottom line: If you want something small and light to take jogging or to the gym, leave this beast at home. If you want tons of capacity and the ability to play low-quality movies, you might consider it. Remember, you'll need something that can convert files to WMV format. Windows Media Player says it does this, but the quality SUCKS.

For my purposes, this is a great unit for long car trips, for setting on your desk at work, or for plane trips. I use it at the gym now, but have the Sansa Clip on the way. 2 gigs is fine for workouts and I like the voice record and FM radio functions.

What would I do if I were Toshiba? Well, the capacity is great, add some functions. Put an FM transmitter in it so you can use it in cars that don't have an input jack. Put an FM radio in it so you can use it as a radio. How about a mic so you can record lectures, meetings, or memos? How about a car adapter so you don't have to worry about your battery life? All in all, we knew the shortcomings when we bought it and it performs as good as we expected. I marked it down only for the fragile bezel and jack that went bad, but Toshiba honored the warranty!

I have had this MEV30K for a couple of months. After getting my daughter the 30Gig IPOD for her birthday I was amazed with the graphics ability, but refused to d/l movies from Itunes at 10 bucks each. With the Gigabeat I logged into VONGO.com and for 10bucks a month I can d/l unlimited movies! right now there are about 35 movies on my machine and about 7 gigs in songs. I love this machine.. I travel and it is great to watch movies on this instead of my laptop.