Hands-on Review: Toshiba Gigabeat U

It's small and light, it has a postage-stamp sized display, impressive sound—and best of all, it's a good $50 cheaper than a comparable iPod Nano. Check out my review of the Toshiba Gigabeat U.

Make no mistake—the Gigabeat U is no Nano killer. The U's low-resolution screen pales in comparison to the Nano's, and while it's about as light at 1.4 ounces, it's probably twice as thick at about 0.43 inches wide. Still, the compact 2GB Gigabeat U is easy to use, it syncs easily with Windows Media Player, and it's relatively cheap at $99 (versus $150 for a 2GB Nano).

With a "+"-shaped, four-way navigational keypad, plus "back" and "menu" buttons just below the 1.1-inch display, the U is a cinch to use; within minutes of taking it out of the box, I was zooming around the various screens with ease (a nice change from some of the flash-based Nano competitors that come across my desk). That said, the OLED screen is no great shakes; text, photos and album art looked pixilated and borderline cartoon-y on the low-resolution display.

Back on the plus side, music playback came up aces for the most part. You can browse your tunes by album or artist (although not by genre, unfortunately), and you get a full range of shuffle and repeat options (including an A-B repeat mode). There's also an equalizer with four presets and a user-defined mode, plus song bookmarking and a sleep timer. Syncing tunes (MP3, WMA, and copy-protected WMA files are supported, but not AAC files) and playlists via Windows Media Player was a piece of cake, although you can't create on-the-fly playlists on the U itself. Also, I couldn't get the player to show up in the Mac OS X finder, so Mac music lovers should probably steer clear.

Need a break from your own music? The Gigabeat U comes with a built-in FM tuner, which includes 10 auto-programmable presets, and you can record your favorite stations to an MP3 file for later playback. Line-in recording is also available, but you can’t tweak the bitrate settings; as it stands, you’re stuck in 128Kbps mode (same with FM recording)—a bummer for those looking to record, say, a lecture at a low bitrate.

Sound quality on the Gigabeat U was impressive, although you'll probably want to trade in the cheap earbuds with your own pair. Listening on my Shure SE210 earphones, music sounded clear and crisp, with plenty of high-end detail plus solid beats on the low end. My only real complaint was with the volume level—the U doesn't deliver the earsplitting volume that I've heard on other flash players (although maybe that's a good thing). I got about 16 hours of battery life from the U—a little short of the 20 hours promised by Toshiba, but still quite respectable.

All in all, pretty impressive for a $99 MP3 player; it's a solid buy for Windows users looking for an alternative to a Nano.