Toshiba gigabeat MEGF20S 20GB MP3 Digital Audio Player

The colour screen is simply awesome, you can view your photos in a clarity I'd not expected and the various options like a slideshow etc make it easy to navigate. I'm a little suprised that you cannot (by the looks of it) set a particular photo as the wallpaper for your player though.

It's pretty straightforward ripping your music from your computer to the gigabeat via usb2. This can be done through the gigabeat software or windows media player 10. It's just a case of drag and drop (or right click on an album and press transfer). One of the great new features of this though is the cd ripping. You get a desktop dock and on it is a cd button. When a cd is in your computer, just press the button and it rips straight to the player in about 2 1/2 mins a cd.

Playlist creation and all that stuff is easy, just a menu option in the software but I must say I am disappointed that you don't seem to be able to simply play all the songs on the player at random as easily as you can on the ipod.

The dock itself looks a bit cheap and plastic compared to the smooth brush metal finish of the player itself which is disappointing and also the usb cable for the dock is only about a foot long which makes it a bit tricky for people like me who have their computer under a desk but I guess it's easy enough to pick up a longer usb cable if needed but I think that's a real design oversight.

Also, I got the 20gb player, is it really so difficult for manufacturers to now include a remote control on the headphones as standard? You get it on the 40 and 60gb versions. It's annoying if you want to skip a song having to take the player out of your pocket or bag.

The cross scroller navigation is good although not as instinctive and smooth as the ipods scrollwheel but I'm sure in time you would get used to it. It looks very strange but does work nicely. It's also a nice touch that you can switch the navigation and screen display from landscape to portrait mode and the navigation cross scroller switches around accordingly.

I've not yet tried ripping photos straight from a digital camera to the player which is a feature but I'm sure it's just a simple file transfer so I'm not in a great rush to try that.

The headphones and sound quality are better than the ipod but not by much I'd say, I always thought the ipod was good and the headphones, despite their poor build quality were reasonable.

Overall, very impressive bit of kit, looks a lot taller than the ipod because the display takes up about half of the player but stood next to the 15gb ipod I had, it's literally only 2mm taller and the same width and depth and the weight seems to be about the same.

The real downside is you appear to be completely tied to the gigabeat software or windows media player 10 for organising your music. Gigabeat looks like an afterthought and offers very little in the way of extra features and song and album tagging (and volume control) that something like itunes does but I think in due course it will be improved and my main concern was the quality and battery life and so far I've used it all day at work for two days (about 15 hours total) without charging and the battery monitor shows full still but as someone whos ipod only lasted about 2 hours anything is an improvement!

It's certainly one to consider if you're considering an ipod alternative in the £200 range with a full colour display, photo storage and display and a decent battery.

When listening to music there are really neat animated effects. There are multiple and user defined wallpapers everything is quicker and easier to use then that of the Ipod photo the only downside is the software isnt as good as Itunes altough it does the job. Feel smug having this I had to reply with an impolite NO to my mate when he asked if I wanted to swap.

It DOES look right sexy, though. It has a gorgeous brushed steel finish, is just the right size and sits with just the right heaviness in your hand.

The Gigabeat Room software is a general media management application. However, it will only transfer MP3 files, photos and general data. If you want to transfer WMA files with DRM, you're going to need Windows Media Player 10 or Napster. It claims to be able to display album art, but only the Gigabeat Room software will let you upload this. To get the full functionality of the thing, you're going to need to use two different applications.

The supplied accessories are a little stingy. There's no headphone remote control unit - it's an optional extra - but is supplied as standard with the larger capacity versions. There's no case or wrist strap (although there's a little hole for this on the back of the case). A USB cradle, USB cable, power adapter and earbuds are supplied.

Interestingly, you have to use the cradle to sync the device with Windows Media Player or Napster. If you simply connect it with the USB lead, Windows Media Player can't see it, although it appears as a removable drive in Windows Explorer.

The supplied earbuds are exceptionally ugly, don't have particularly good sound quality and one of the earpieces of mine fell apart within 24 hours, spewing out its sad little insides.

The menus on the device itself are a little unintuitive. There seems to be loads of stuff that could really be buried away deep in setup or preferences menus, making the whole thing a little cluttered. Also, you can't create playlists on the device itself. You have to do this on your PC and sync them across, although you can "bookmark" favourite tracks to skip directly to them.

The Plus Touch controls are a little awkward. They don't seem to like large thumbs and require you to touch EXACTLY the right spot, necessitating repeat prodding to get it to do anything.

Also, during playback, I've had strange "data error" messages just a few too many times to be reassuring.

Finally, there's a great companion web site - for users in the States. Look at the corresponding UK site and it doesn't seem to have been finished yet - "Check back later" messages litter it liberally. No accessories or software updates yet.

It's a reasonable little device, though, that I'm sure will grow on me but it could be so much better. At least it's not an iPOD.

Pros: Looks sexy; decent capacity; compatible with Napster To Go; it's not an iPOD.
Cons: Needs its cradle to sync; fiddly Plus Touch control buttons; stingy supplied accessories; scant web support; disastrous earbuds - buy your own.