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Toshiba Gigabeat F20
Price: 10-60GB: £200-£310 inc VAT

Features
Performance
Ease of use
Value for money
Overall

Reviewed By: Andy Shaw

This review updated: 08/08/2005
Featured in magazine:
Issue 114
Manufacturer Contacts:
Supplier: Toshiba
Tel: 08704 424424
Web Address: www.gigabeat.toshiba.co.uk


The latest iPod pretender is here – Toshiba's Gigabeat range is designed to take Apple head on, with hard disk-based music players available in 10, 20, 40 and 60GB versions. We got hold of the 20GB Gigabeat F20 to test.

Features
At first glance, the main difference between a Gigabeat and its rival is the colour. No angelic white for Tosh, the Gigabeat comes in a cool brushed aluminium casing. All four capacities have a colour screen for displaying your photo collection and it's worth pointing out that this is bigger than Apple's – 5.8cm corner to corner, positioned in a portrait orientation, compared to Apple's landscape screen that's just over 5cm across. There's an independently powered charging cradle to hook it up to your PC so you don't have to fiddle with cables every time you want to add some music and you don't need your PC on to boost the batteries.

Performance
Music quality through the slightly odd-looking ear buds is superb, while its 16-hour battery life gives you plenty of playing time between recharges. A range of preset equaliser settings can augment the type of music you're listening to depending on its style, and most have a couple of options to choose from if you're really picky. The device performed equally well with MP3, WMA and WAV files.

Ease of use
Toshiba's own software is basic compared to iTunes but the good news is that it happily connects to the usual Windows music-playing suspects like Windows Media Player and Napster To Go, both included in the package if you don't already have them. Using the device is far from clunky but it doesn't have the ultra-smooth user interface of the iPod. Browsing music is simple, organised by artist, album or genre. Browsing photos isn't so easy as we found that album covers were also transferred to the photo directory and ended up before the photos in the folder, leaving a bit of scrolling to get to them. Also, you can't make playlists on the move.

Value for money
Perhaps most surprising is that Toshiba hasn't managed to undercut Apple's prices. Both this 20GB model and its 60GB sibling are £10 more expensive than their fruity rivals. Although there are some savings to be made if you're willing to sacrifice capacity and you may find it discounted if you shop around, we were surprised there was no undercutting going on to make the Gigabeat a stronger contender.

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