Toshiba MEV30K Gigabeat V 30 GB Portable Media Player

first of all...the warranty on this thing is excellent...i sent mine in about a month after i got it (july last year) and they sent it back working fine (audio line didn't work)...but after the warranty that's when it started breaking down...i used an old neoprene case from my handspring pda from like...1999...it fit perfectly...but i dropped it on a soccer trip...the white casing shattered into a million pieces...basically i thought i was screwed...theni just sucked it up and kept using it...and now...well it just doesnt charge anymore...since the warranty is expired...they won't do anything for me...so if you are careful...go ahead get it...but if your gonna run with the MEV30K...it wouldn't be wise to grab one

I have had my Gigabeat for 2 1/2 years and have read(listened to) over 300 books. Your library has them for free. (all categories, even children's books) What a way to exercise, take a walk,or just lay out in the sun. You can catch up on all your reading and you don't even have to turn the pages.

We bought it as a replacement for a broken Gigabeat F40. Strangely, we bought this for $205, now it's about $60 more expensive! When do prices on electronics go UP?!!! This is a 2.5" hard drive based system. The current trend is to use flash memory and that'll catch up to the 30gig level soon enough, but for now... well this is pretty darn good.

Pros: It has lots of capacity. I haven't gotten over the 8 gig level yet, but then I'm using it as a glorified MP3 player. For movies, I've started using DVDFab Platinum that will convert my DVD's to WMV (Have to use the Zune setting). Works great. The interface is fine. I like the software for the most part.

Cons: Here we go. First off, the software on the Gigabeat is fine, it's the Windows Media Player 11 that likes to take command and do things you didn't tell it to do. They call it "sync" but you don't have any control over what sync's or how it does it if you just plug it in. It'll do it in the background. Took it to work and the Media Player there DELETED everything on my Gigabeat and wanted to put the songs I had there onto the Gigabeat. That sucked.

More Cons: The white bezel piece is a thinner plastic than that plastic wrap they put in the bubble packaging. It broke in three places from 'normal' handling. I baby my equipment, but it just takes a little bump. You can't drop this thing from one inch let alone if I had really dropped it.

Still More Cons: The battery wouldn't keep it running that long if you did any intensive searching or fiddling. It was fine if you set it and then just listened to the shuffle, but it really drained it if you hunted for the songs you wanted. It had about half the battery life I had expected.

Even More Cons: Well, the straw that broke the broken bezeled, short battery-lifed wonder-toy of my daughter's was the headphone jack. It went out after two months of use. It gave us fits on and off for about a week prior to quitting altogether. We were in the process of moving and decided to get her a phone with MP3 player functionality. She hasn't looked back (It's the MUZIQ, BTW, and she loves it).

Well, that's not the end of the story. Finally moved and settled in, dug out the MEV30K and called Toshiba. They promptly gave me an RMA number and I sent the unit off for repair. Thank you, Amazon, for having a reciept online I could print up... I didn't have one from when I bought it. Anyway, about a week and a half after sending it in, it came back with new bezels, a new board, and all of my kid's music still on there. Well, now it's got my music.

Bottom line: If you want something small and light to take jogging or to the gym, leave this beast at home. If you want tons of capacity and the ability to play low-quality movies, you might consider it. Remember, you'll need something that can convert files to WMV format. Windows Media Player says it does this, but the quality SUCKS.

For my purposes, this is a great unit for long car trips, for setting on your desk at work, or for plane trips. I use it at the gym now, but have the Sansa Clip on the way. 2 gigs is fine for workouts and I like the voice record and FM radio functions.

What would I do if I were Toshiba? Well, the capacity is great, add some functions. Put an FM transmitter in it so you can use it in cars that don't have an input jack. Put an FM radio in it so you can use it as a radio. How about a mic so you can record lectures, meetings, or memos? How about a car adapter so you don't have to worry about your battery life? All in all, we knew the shortcomings when we bought it and it performs as good as we expected. I marked it down only for the fragile bezel and jack that went bad, but Toshiba honored the warranty!

I consider myself relatively computer saavy. However, I do have some issues navigating through WMP. That is probably the biggest downfall to this gadget. The storage for the $ is spectacular when you compare it to something like an IPOD. While the size is big, a large protion of it is screen...great for uploading funny videos, movies (if you can get one formated right) and pictures. I only give it 4 stars instead of 5 because you do have to use WMP...which doesn't always Sync the way you intend it to (maybe if your better at using the program, this won't be such a PITA). Also, because I'm really picky about how my song screen displays, I find it really tedious to find the album information for each of my songs so that the name and album art display correctly with each song. I've spent nearly 48 hours fixing all of my mp3s.

This device is a complete entertainment coup for Toshiba. I am not an audiophile but I know good music. I have enjoyed recordings from Roy Acuff to Rise Stevens and this Device reproduces sound to the nth degree. Pictures are supberb. The unit is easy to use and being coupled with WMP makes it better because my XP system naturally accepts its software. The new Amazon MP3 dowloads makes everything a complete package.