Toshiba Gigabeat S Review
The new Toshiba gigabeat S is one slick-looking MP3 player. Available in a white 30GB model (S30, $299.99 direct) and a black 60GB model (S60, $399.99), it sports a sharp 2.4-inch LCD, a slim profile, and a nifty cross-shaped button array. Although it lacks voice/line-in/FM recording, this Windows Mobile-based hard-drive player offers very good sound quality and is a solid alternative to an iPod for Microsoft Windows users. Media Center PC owners, especially, will be intrigued by its familiar Portable Media Center interface. Audio geeks will dig the player's support for the WMA Lossless format, and photographers will like the USB Host feature, which lets you connect the player directly to a camera or other USB device. I hope that a good accessory market will spring up around it soon.
The gigabeat measures 2.4 by 3.9 by 0.5 inches (HWD) and weighs a scant 4.3 ounces. It's an attractive player, with a silver anodized aluminum back, a white (S30) or black (S60) front that appears fairly scratch-resistant, and chrome trim. There's a cross-shaped four-way rocker with a center select button on the front (a mechanical control replaces the earlier gigabeat's touch-sensitive strips), and just below the 320- by 240-pixel, 2.4-inch LCD, there's a Back button and a Start button.
If these were the only controls on the player, I'd be satisfied. But for some reason, Toshiba chose to put tiny play/pause and track skip buttons-as well as dedicated volume controls and a power button-on the right side. Even worse, the labels next to the buttons can be tough to read at some angles. This isn't the end of the world, but keeping the playback controls on the front or integrating them with the main cross-style buttons would have been a better choice.
Other ports include a DC input jack (5V), a battery on/off switch (for long-term storage purposes), a combination USB 2.0/USB Host port for connecting compatible devices, and a Hold switch. Finally, there's a dock connector on the bottom, though Toshiba doesn't currently offer a cradle for the gigabeat S series. It certainly seems to indicate that there will be accessories offered later on that will use this type of connector. Inside, the gigabeat has a FreeScale i.MX processor, a 30GB or 60GB 1.8-inch hard drive, an FM tuner, and a nonremovable rechargeable battery.
Included in the package are a two-piece AC adapter, a standard mini-USB 2.0 cable, earbuds (with gold-plated connector, asymmetrical cables), a 3.5mm-to-RCA A/V cable, a USB Host adapter, and CD with WMP 10 on it.
The Windows Mobile interface mirrors that of Windows Media Center Edition and is very easy to figure out. The Start button (marked with a Windows icon) takes you to the top-level menu, and the Back button moves you backwards through the menus or out of the current screen. Browsing is excellent—you can choose browsing criteria from a list or cycle through them. In Now Playing mode, you can cycle backward and forward through different views (including full-screen album art) and contextual menus by hitting the right button on the cross. When you're scrolling through a long list of files or artists, holding the down or up button on the cross invokes a very useful power-scrolling feature that jumps by first letter.
I have a couple of minor gripes about the interface. Some files' ID3 tags are not recognized even though they display correctly in WMP 10 (Microsoft is aware of the problem and is working toward a resolution). And you're stuck with the standard (boring) Windows wallpaper, which depicts a blue sky over a green field, rather than being able to customize the screen.
The gigabeat works very well with Windows XP Media Center Edition, especially for transferring recorded TV shows, and the interface is nearly identical. I transferred 412.5MB of content in Windows Media Player 10 from my IBM ThinkPad T60 in a blazingly fast 55 seconds. That translates to roughly 2 minutes 15 seconds per gigabyte-a new record! You can connect the gigabeat to your Xbox 360 so you can replace game audio and control the player via the Xbox, and it is compatible with TiVoToGo (used by TiVo Series2 owners). The device is PlaysForSure-certified for both audio and video (download and subscription); I used it seamlessly with Napster To Go and Vongo. I just wish it supported Audible as well. You can also reserve up to 2GB of hard-drive space for transferring files via the USB Host port from compatible cameras, cards, and thumb drives; this is a nice feature, but given the overall size of the gigabeat's hard drive (up to 60GB), I'm a bit surprised by the size limit.
Audio format support is pretty standard, including MP3, WMA, protected WMA, and WAV, but with the very notable addition of WMA Lossless-something I'm very happy about. This also means you can use the device with content from MusicGiants, which is currently the only online service that offers losslessly compressed files. The gigabeat supports video files in WMV format; I was able to get an ASF file to play, but it was very jerky and unwatchable. Photo support is limited to JPEG. Thankfully, WMP 10 handles the video and photo conversion and transfer, eliminating the need for clunky third-party apps.
Playback modes include Repeat All and Shuffle modes, but no single or A-B repeat. You can tag songs for purchase from an online music service the next time you connect the device to your PC. Unfortunately, you can't create multiple playlists on the device, but you can make a Quicklist, which is a single dynamic playlist. I like that you can add single or multiple tracks to the Quicklist. In Photo mode, you can zoom in one level to 2X and pan, as well as watch slide shows with musical accompaniment.
Can You Hear It?
The gigabeat's sound quality with the included earbuds is somewhere between very good and excellent. My frequency response test showed the same rolloff in the bass found on other high-end players like the iPod, and the rest of the graph was pretty flat. But I could hear quite a bit of detail in the mids and nicely extended highs when I used my reference Etymotic ER-4P in-ear headphones. Overall, the gigabeat's sound stands right up there with the iPod and Creative Zen Vision:M. I didn't hear any system noise or decoder glitches, either.
At maximum volume, I found just a bit of harmonic distortion in the mids. The signal is clean otherwise, and the output is powerful enough. I measured a sustained 106 dB through the included earbuds playing Boston's "More Than a Feeling"-loud enough to damage your hearing. Needless to say, the player can drive midrange to high-end earbuds from companies such as Shure, Ultimate Ears, and Etymotic with no problems.
The player doesn't offer many sound-enhancement options, just the standard handful of preset equalization options for different genres. I wasn't really impressed with any of them, and I would have liked a custom EQ-or better yet, simple bass and treble tone controls. One strange menu option is called Harmonics. According to Toshiba, this feature enhances your music by replacing high frequencies that were lost during MP3 and WMA compression. Although I could hear the difference between the two settings, it's so subtle that most users won't notice.
The integrated FM tuner has an auto-scan feature. Also, it supports up to 60 presets in two groups of 30, which is handy if you frequent an area other than your hometown and want to keep separate sets of favorites. The manual tuner has a digital alarm-clock LED-style interface-no simulated analog dials. The sound is very clear, and reception is very good with the adjustable sensitivity set to high.
Just You Watch
The QVGA screen can display roughly 65,000 colors (the same as the iPod, fewer than the Zen Vision:M) and looks very sharp. The adjustable brightness is on a five-step scale, and though it looks good at the default medium setting, the brightest setting really makes photos and video pop. Color isn't overly vivid, but it looks quite accurate. Photos and video default to landscape mode; to view them, you hold the player sideways since the screen is taller than it is wide, though you can switch to portrait mode. The cross-shaped controls switch orientation along with the screen for convenience.
All of the videos I played (WMV files from Vongo and my own collection) were smooth and very clear. You can resume playback from where you left off or play videos from the beginning, but there's no manual bookmarking feature. I connected the included cable to the A/V output (which is also the headphone jack) to watch movies on a TV screen, which requires you to select TV output manually. I found the quality pleasing enough that I'd actually use the feature without hesitation.
My battery rundown tests were somewhat of a disappointment. For continuous audio playback, the battery lasted only 11.5 hours, using the included earbuds at a comfortable listening volume. For video playback, I used two full-length movies from Vongo (The Bourne Supremacy and Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery) and got 3 hours 15 minutes-a full 45 minutes more than Toshiba claims, and enough to play both movies in their entirety. I tested using the screen's default medium brightness setting. Obviously you'll get significantly less out of the battery if you increase the LCD brightness. The video playback time is a bit more than you get with the iPod, but the audio playback time is definitely (and surprisingly) subpar.
Overall, the gigabeat S series is an impressive product, providing essential music and video features. If you're looking for a non-Apple player that's compatible with a wide range of services, this is a good choice. (Just keep in mind that it doesn't support Audible.) The things that impress me most are the screen quality and the WMA Lossless support. I admit I'm disappointed by the short battery life for audio and the lack of a voice recorder, though. But you do get your money's worth with a high-quality, elegant audio/video player that has plenty of style and polish. Among non-Apple hard-drive players, I'd recommend this second only to the Creative Zen Vision:M, and it's definitely an improvement over the original gigabeat F series.