Toshiba Gigabeat: the beat goes on

The buzz is building about Toshiba's Gigabeat range of MP3 players, set to launch in July. We like the look of these toothsome players, and it will be interesting to see how Apple responds to a rival taking a bite out of its portable music market with an impressively featured product.

First of all, the integrated 'Napster To Go' service lets you add anything you like to the player for £14.95 a month, with a selection of over 1 million tracks available. This should mean that filling the 10GB, 20GB, 40GB or 60GB sizes won't be too much of a challenge, but you can also transfer and store digital photos to view on the high resolution colour screen. As with the iPod photo, the screen will also display the current album cover.

The downside to all this fancy multimedia integration is that the battery life is pretty average at 16hrs -- Sony has been pushing past the 30hr mark of late. The navigation uses a standard (but touch sensitive) four-way controller, which isn't quite as sexy as Apple's universally admired Click-Wheel. The players will go on sale for £200 to £300, depending on size. We can't wait to get our hands on them. -GC