Saturday, October 16, 2004
Toshiba Launches 60Gb Mp3 Player/Digital Photo Wallet with QVGA Colour Screen
Posted by Jonathon Watkins in "THE COMPETITION" @ 11:00 AM
"Compact and weighty, the Gigabeat is roughly the same size as the iPod 40GB model. However, that's where the similarities stop. The front is adorned with a large 2.2in QVGA 240 x 320 colour screen that is crisp and clear, and a sliding control cross mechanism - a mix of the clickwheel from the iPod and the slider from Creative's Zen Touch.......Because of the large colour screen you can also view record covers and Toshiba is hoping to release a USB add-on that will allow you to input digital images to store or, more importantly, view on the player."
The Register mentions in their review, that many had thought that the new Toshiba 60Gb Hard disk would be reserved for the iPod range. Instead, Toshiba have launched a very worthy contender of their own. The Gigabeat plays Mp3s (obviously), WMA and WAV, is supplied with a networkable USB 2.0 sync and charge cradle and is available in blue, silver and pink. (You can see the colours in the official press release here. With a QVGA colour screen, this unit really resembles a PDA, apart from the fact that it can run continuously for 20 hours on one battery charge. ;-) Just look at the photo above: to my eyes the Gigabeat really reassembles the first or second generation of Pocket PCs. Imagine running PPC2003SE on a device with 60Gb of storage! Surely such a hybrid device can’t be too far off? OK, it would be larger than a ‘normal’ Pocket PC, but for 60Gb of storage I would be prepared to live with that. What about you guys? Even those of you that don’t like the idea of hard drives in PPCs, must be tempted by storing 60 G's of 'stuff' on your pride and joy?
The Register mentions in their review, that many had thought that the new Toshiba 60Gb Hard disk would be reserved for the iPod range. Instead, Toshiba have launched a very worthy contender of their own. The Gigabeat plays Mp3s (obviously), WMA and WAV, is supplied with a networkable USB 2.0 sync and charge cradle and is available in blue, silver and pink. (You can see the colours in the official press release here. With a QVGA colour screen, this unit really resembles a PDA, apart from the fact that it can run continuously for 20 hours on one battery charge. ;-) Just look at the photo above: to my eyes the Gigabeat really reassembles the first or second generation of Pocket PCs. Imagine running PPC2003SE on a device with 60Gb of storage! Surely such a hybrid device can’t be too far off? OK, it would be larger than a ‘normal’ Pocket PC, but for 60Gb of storage I would be prepared to live with that. What about you guys? Even those of you that don’t like the idea of hard drives in PPCs, must be tempted by storing 60 G's of 'stuff' on your pride and joy?
