Toshiba Gigabeat S Reviewer's Comments
|
You may also be interested in these review sites...
|
The Gigabeat mp3 player is available in a 30GB or 60 GB size and can display many types of video files. It is a good basic player but offers few advanced features like the ability to play games, record voice or act as an external hard drive and only displays jpeg images.
Features:
The Gigabeat has many of the standard features that the higher ranked products have such as the ability to display video and slideshows and play FM radio. This player has most of the tools you need to download by USB but is missing many other basic features such as the ability to act as an external hard drive, time management tools and record abilities. This player cannot record voice or by a line-in and cannot display TXT files.
On the positive side, this product is compatible with popular download services like napster, rhapsody and eMusic as well as Starz Vongo for movies and TiVo for your favorite television shows. It can also be connected to an XBOX 360.
Music Formats:
The Gigabeat supports three types of music: mp3, wma, and wav. If you like to use Windows Media Player, this will work for you, otherwise if your want to be able to download other formats onto this player you will need to convert them first.
Picture Formats:
Like the Cowon iAudio X5, the Gigabeat only supports jpeg image files, it would be nice if it could also display bmp, gif and tiff as well.
Video Formats:
Toshiba excels in this area; this player can play mp4, mov, wmv, avi and divx video files. So if you are looking for a good portable video player this may be a good choice for you.
Physical Features:
This player is basically the same size/weight as other top ranked products and has a 2.4 inch diagonal screen. However, the screen in taller than it is wide and you cannot change the orientation, whereas the other top products have screens that are wider than they are tall.
This player has a twelve hour battery or it can play video for 2.5 hours, so you can get through a whole movie before you have to plug it in.
Help/Support:
Toshiba offers online support with FAQs and an email contact for customer support; however we could not find any relevant information on Toshiba Gigabeat S. Their customer support section indicates that if you can't find help information for your product you can contact customer support if it is still under warranty. However, they suggest locating a distributor for parts and accessories if the warranty on your product is expired.
Summary:
The Toshiba Gigabeat is compatible with popular video formats and download services, but for the same price you could get an iPod Video or Zen Vision:M and get more features and the ability to display more types of images.
A complete list of features and side-by-side comparisons are available on the Hard Drive MP3 Player Review HomePage.
©2008 TopTenREVIEWS, Inc.
