Hi guys,
I'm from India and i just received my player from buy.com the other day.
Heres a small Review of the same.
The first thing I noticed was the absolutely pilfer proof and meticulous packaging that kept the player and its accessories safe over the long journey that it had to make for it to come into my hands.
I bought it for roughly $200 US inclusive of everything and honestly i was beaming with happiness for the deal before even opening the box.
The accessories that came with the player were more than impressive and the only thing thats makes me cringe is the quality of the plastic used for the remote and the sides of the dock.Bad for something upwards of a hundred and fifty quid and absolutely out of place on a 200 dollar music player.
After unwrapping all the carefully packed accessories in the box i connected the charger to the dock and placed the player on it.Man!Was it a sight to behold.All that brushed aluminum was making its presence felt and it looked oh so yummy standing on its own on the dock!After switching it on i was happy to note that the screen had a very good resolution(320 x 240) and it was in fact better than my nseries nokia phone.I instantly fell in love with the screen and knew that this would be one of the MAJOR features of the Gigabeat to showoff to the guys at the bar!The only grouse was that it could have been brighter.
The Plus touch touchpad was not TOO difficult to put up with but remember the shortcuts and the player becomes easy to use.Other than that the buttons on the side lit up in smart blue and i was done with the preliminary settings after which i was ready to go.The miniUSB cable supplied with the player is a bit too short but the length of the adapter cord more than makes up for that.
When i connected it to my computer Windows XP instantly recognised it as a USB MASS STORAGE device.Then...disappointment.As soon as i opened the jacket that enclosed the cd i saw that the software version for the gigabeat room was ver.2.02us.I then saw that the player too had shipped with the older and more faulty version 2.00us.So the first thing i did was to google for the firmware and thats what made me sit up and note that there's an entire forum for 'Gigausers.'Nonetheless i downloaded the new firmware but was scared of killing my gigabeat before listening to it even once if there was a glitch in the installation but luckily things went fine and i followed the instructions and updated my player firmware as well as installed the latest version of gigabeat room.So far so good..I thought..Then as i plugged in the player one more time the gigabeat room started on its own.And i was EXTREMELY happy with Toshiba's alliance with the Gracenote CDDB database.Its extremely accurate and holds information about almost every song that i have on my harddrive.After updating the songs i started transferring them to the Gigabeat and i was very surprised as the speed with which the songs were transferring was FAR FAR better than the speed that people have been mentioning on other forums.It took about fifteen minutes to transfer about 900 songs and this impressed me a lot.About 6 gigs were already transferred to my gigabeat.
And i was ready for the litmus test..Does the gigabeat cut the mustard with its SOUND QUALITY?
If you ask me i have two answers for you.
1. If you opt to use the bundled earphones..No..They don't stay in the ear and do not have a decent bass response.They're loud..Ok but they don't impress me much with ok midrange,exaggerated highs and muffled low end response.
2.Ok..Now unplug these and plug in my Logitechs..Lo and behold!What a transformation.This baby sure kicks the iPod's butt in the sound stakes..Definitely.
The user interface is very ok but then its the music thats important to gigausers..Not the looks.And for those who prefer the latter they can happily become iPeople.And go into iOblivion.Cos the number of iPods that i see give me an eyesore and instantly make me opt for my gigabeat as its rare..And for me thats special.The capacity's right.The price is even more right.The quality is awesome.So is the sound quality.Battery life..Well i've charged it just three times but it lasts well.So no gripes about that one.The screen rocks and so does the picture album that serves its purpose very well,handling the 5000 odd photos that i transferred after a few days.
So all you guys who are contemplating buying one but don't know whom to ask, look no further..This thread reveals it all.Ask me anything and ill answer you on your way to becoming a gigauser..
I'm from India and i just received my player from buy.com the other day.
Heres a small Review of the same.
The first thing I noticed was the absolutely pilfer proof and meticulous packaging that kept the player and its accessories safe over the long journey that it had to make for it to come into my hands.
I bought it for roughly $200 US inclusive of everything and honestly i was beaming with happiness for the deal before even opening the box.
The accessories that came with the player were more than impressive and the only thing thats makes me cringe is the quality of the plastic used for the remote and the sides of the dock.Bad for something upwards of a hundred and fifty quid and absolutely out of place on a 200 dollar music player.
After unwrapping all the carefully packed accessories in the box i connected the charger to the dock and placed the player on it.Man!Was it a sight to behold.All that brushed aluminum was making its presence felt and it looked oh so yummy standing on its own on the dock!After switching it on i was happy to note that the screen had a very good resolution(320 x 240) and it was in fact better than my nseries nokia phone.I instantly fell in love with the screen and knew that this would be one of the MAJOR features of the Gigabeat to showoff to the guys at the bar!The only grouse was that it could have been brighter.
The Plus touch touchpad was not TOO difficult to put up with but remember the shortcuts and the player becomes easy to use.Other than that the buttons on the side lit up in smart blue and i was done with the preliminary settings after which i was ready to go.The miniUSB cable supplied with the player is a bit too short but the length of the adapter cord more than makes up for that.
When i connected it to my computer Windows XP instantly recognised it as a USB MASS STORAGE device.Then...disappointment.As soon as i opened the jacket that enclosed the cd i saw that the software version for the gigabeat room was ver.2.02us.I then saw that the player too had shipped with the older and more faulty version 2.00us.So the first thing i did was to google for the firmware and thats what made me sit up and note that there's an entire forum for 'Gigausers.'Nonetheless i downloaded the new firmware but was scared of killing my gigabeat before listening to it even once if there was a glitch in the installation but luckily things went fine and i followed the instructions and updated my player firmware as well as installed the latest version of gigabeat room.So far so good..I thought..Then as i plugged in the player one more time the gigabeat room started on its own.And i was EXTREMELY happy with Toshiba's alliance with the Gracenote CDDB database.Its extremely accurate and holds information about almost every song that i have on my harddrive.After updating the songs i started transferring them to the Gigabeat and i was very surprised as the speed with which the songs were transferring was FAR FAR better than the speed that people have been mentioning on other forums.It took about fifteen minutes to transfer about 900 songs and this impressed me a lot.About 6 gigs were already transferred to my gigabeat.
And i was ready for the litmus test..Does the gigabeat cut the mustard with its SOUND QUALITY?
If you ask me i have two answers for you.
1. If you opt to use the bundled earphones..No..They don't stay in the ear and do not have a decent bass response.They're loud..Ok but they don't impress me much with ok midrange,exaggerated highs and muffled low end response.
2.Ok..Now unplug these and plug in my Logitechs..Lo and behold!What a transformation.This baby sure kicks the iPod's butt in the sound stakes..Definitely.
The user interface is very ok but then its the music thats important to gigausers..Not the looks.And for those who prefer the latter they can happily become iPeople.And go into iOblivion.Cos the number of iPods that i see give me an eyesore and instantly make me opt for my gigabeat as its rare..And for me thats special.The capacity's right.The price is even more right.The quality is awesome.So is the sound quality.Battery life..Well i've charged it just three times but it lasts well.So no gripes about that one.The screen rocks and so does the picture album that serves its purpose very well,handling the 5000 odd photos that i transferred after a few days.
So all you guys who are contemplating buying one but don't know whom to ask, look no further..This thread reveals it all.Ask me anything and ill answer you on your way to becoming a gigauser..
