Handsome device sounds great, plays all formats

The Toshiba Gigabeat portable music player plays all formats - WMAs, MP3s, the lot.

With the rampant success of Apple's iPod, it seems that everybody and their uncle is clamouring to get a piece of the highly lucrative, portable music-player market. And that's a good thing, because it's driving innovation, not to mention causing prices to come down.

Toshiba's Gigabeat is an excellent example. Here's a handsome little device that does everything the iPod does and more considerably cheaper.

Design-wise, it's pretty obvious Toshiba has borrowed the iPod's successful look. The Gigabeat is a sleek and simple rectangle and its main interface - which allows for navigation of the various menus - is a big plus sign, somewhat similar to the iPod's circular control. A few buttons on the side also perform operation functions, such as power on and off, and volume control. The only real difference in look is that the Gigabeat comes in metallic colours.

But who really cares about looks when it comes to music players? The sound is the key, after all.

In this, the Gigabeat delivers - its sound quality probably couldn't be any better. Whereas lower-end players can often sound tinny, music on the Gigabeat is crystal clear. The device also features 28 different equaliser settings, which can be saved to each individual song, if you so desire.

Most importantly, in this climate where clashing formats are emerging as a serious problem for digital music, the Gigabeat plays everything. Unlike the iPod, which rejects Microsoft's Windows Media Audio files, the Gigabeat plays them all - WMAs, MP3s and so on.

Like the iPod Photo, the Gigabeat also serves as a picture (and file) storage device. It's got a nice 2.2-inch, 240 by 320 pixel colour screen that displays album cover art or photos downloaded on to the device through the Gigabeat Room software.

It's not a big screen, but the image quality at such a small size is quite impressive.

The Gigabeat also manages power efficiently - it comes with a recharging cradle and once it's fully juiced it lasts a surprisingly long time. Toshiba boasts a battery life of 16 hours, and while I didn't actually count the hours between recharges, it would definitely be close to that.

The device can also leach power from your PC or laptop through a USB connection so you can travel without the recharger.

If there's a problem with the Gigabeat, it's the file organisation and menu system. Unless you have all the artists, song titles and album titles labelled perfectly on your PC - and who does? - playback can get a little tricky.

And properly labelling songs in large quantities before transferring them can be a seriously tedious task.

The Gigabeat's final big advantage, at least over the iPod, is its pricing.

The basic 20-gigabyte F20 device sells for around $480, whereas its iPod counterpart goes for about $540. The Gigabeat is also available in a 40GB F40 version at $579, and a 60GB F60 version at $649. In comparison, the top-of-the-line 60GB iPod Photo sells for about $720.

In all, the Gigabeat is a fantastic device that any music fan will thoroughly enjoy.

Toshiba Gigabeat

Pros: Crystal-clear sound; nice display; good power management.

Cons: Menu and file organisation system is somewhat wonky.

Herald Rating: 9/10

Price: $649