With Toshiba’s type of reputation, a person expects them to put out the same type of product. Nothing mind-blowing or earth shattering, but something that does exactly what you want it to. This is why the Toshiba Gigabeat Portable Media Center is so wonderful. But on the other hand, its Gigabeat Mobile Audio Player is less than wonderful. If you are wondering what customers are talking about, lets start with the screen. Toshiba produced a great 2.2″ screen that views as well as any digital media player on the market today. Why is this bad? Because the Toshiba Gigabeat Mobile Audio Player is just that, an audio player. You can view photos, but no video. What a waste of a big time screen.

Next, a place where an MP3 player can be labeled great or horrible, is the navigation system. Toshiba has designed a PlusTouch system that forms a cross in the middle of the player. Like Apple, Creative, and everybody else, Toshiba believes in their system, but this one is weak to say the least. For starters, sometimes it reads your actions for something completely opposite of what you intended (pausing when you attempt to turn up the volume, etc.).

But worst of all, the quality of the software is less than desirable. It does offer the use of Windows Media, but this is almost impossible to do at times. Toshiba offers the Gigabeat Room Management Software that inexplicably attempts to reformat all MP3 files into a .SAT format. This format is almost unreadable by a computer which causes a major problem if you are looking to send your files back to your computer. But as its been said before, when it comes to electronics it is truly “to each their own”. And each person may find that they enjoy what Toshiba has to offer in their player. However, Toshiba’s Gigabeat Mobile Audio Player seems to be lagging behind quite significantly in the digital audio race.

The idea of a having a portable audio player dates back many years ago, when the option then was a fairly big cassette-tape-playing two-speaker audio system. Eventually these devices got smaller and back in the late seventies a hand size cassette-tape audio player was made available. Now as electronics evolved and with the mp3 audio format, one can satisfy his needs for a portable audio device thru the use of mp3 players.
Mp3 players became very popular and it is very common to see people using it while doing many activities such as jogging, commuting to work, traveling, buying groceries, computer related tasks and others.

For those who intend to purchase an mp3 player, one might consider the following tips:

1 – The internal memory size of an mp3 player will determine the amount of mp3 songs the device will be able to hold. Some models may even have an internal hard drive to store songs, however the size and price may go up a little bit and it is not recommend to be used by someone doing intensive physical activities. Also some models may the have the option of flash memory.

2 – The battery life is a very important feature, because it will determine how many hours the mp3 player will function properly. Make sure the mp3 player comes with an AC/DV adapter for quick battery charge.

3 – There a lots of sizes of mp3 players. Features such as a larger screen, video capability, hard drive and others, all add up to a bigger size. And price too!

4 – The way an mp3 player connects to a computer is a also very important feature. Latest model may support high speed USB 2.0 transfer. Some others may even have Firewire support.

5 – Some mp3 players even may accept other audio format besides mp3, such as WMA format. Check the player’s specification if this feature is going to be used.

6 – Also mp3 players may have other features besides of mp3 playing. Features such as FM tuner and audio recording capability, may be of some interest to some users.

7 – As for the price just make sure the mp3 player you are buying has just the features you are looking for. Why pay more for features you are not going to be using anyway? Mp3 players can be purchased for prices from fifty up to several hundred dollars. Brand name players will cost even more.

Portable mp3 players have become a must have product of desire among the younger population. After all almost everyone has one of them. So if you don’ have one yet, it’s about time to keep yourself updated with modern time.

Roberto Sedycias
IT Consultant