Toshiba Gigabeat 60GB review

Verdict:

The Gigabeat is likable with good all-round performance and plenty of storage. It's expensive, but is great value if you have a huge music collection

Review Date: 27 Apr 2006

Price when reviewed: inc VAT

Our Rating 5 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

The Gigabeat is the most expensive player in our test, but with a 60GB disk it is the cheapest hard disk player per megabyte. It's the only player here with a docking cradle and remote. It lacks the iPod's style, but its alloy case is smart.

Turn the Gigabeat on, and its blue illuminated controls and large colour screen liven things up. Its sharp display is matched only the iRiver U10's.

Five buttons, a hold switch and a touch-sensitive cross control the Gigabeat. The cross's functions are context-dependent, and it was easier to use than the function buttons on the side.

Toshiba's headphones sound clear but have little bass. A better set revealed this player's exceptional sound quality at the default equalisation but, as with the iPod, many of its EQ presets introduce distortion.

When using the cradle, Windows recognises the Gigabeat as a Portable Media Device, but at just 0.6MB per second file transfers were slow. When connected directly, Windows recognised our Gigabeat only as removable storage. It wouldn't play music unless it was transferred with the Gigabeat Room software. The player supports music from Plays For Sure stores such as Napster.

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