Excellent hardware hampered by half-witted software
Written: Oct 12 '07
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Pros: Excellent screen, easy to use, stylish, lots of storage, can be used as external drive
Cons: Not featherweight, interface could be better, no clock
The Bottom Line: Lots of storage and great sound quality make this a very desirable portable media player.
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| hbj200's Full Review: Toshiba gigabeat V Series MEV-30K (30 GB) MP3 Play... |
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
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 220
Recommended for: Music Lovers - High Capacity Storage for an Entire Album Collection
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Epinions.com ID:
hbj200
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Location: USA
Reviews written: 183
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About Me:
I'm poor but I'm proud. I'm a gadget freak. :)
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