Roughly the same size and weight as the Creative Zen, the Toshiba Gigabeat T's glossy black plastic body is nicely complemented by pink, orange, or blue trim and matching cables on the included earbuds.

 

One drawback is that it's available with only 4GB of internal memory (although we like its low price) and lacks expandable storage, making it less than ideal for extensive video watching.

 

The Gigabeat T's best feature is its interface, which closely resembles and integrates tightly with Windows Media Center. The 2.4-inch screen looked great, and the plus-pad controls were extremely easy to use. The animated menus are clear and responsive, and you get plenty of control over sound and video playback.

 

Our test music sounded impressive, and the player supports the pristine-sounding WMA Lossless format as well as MP3, WMA (including subscription content), and WAV files. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and JPEG photos looked excellent on the QVGA screen, though videos are limited to the WMV format.

 

The battery life for video is around five hours, which is respectable, but audio playback tops out at just 16 hours--far less than the iPod nano's 24 hours. We're disappointed with the absence of an FM tuner and lack of Mac support. On the plus side, the gigabeat T400 supports TV content recorded on a Windows Media Center PC.

 

If not for the subpar audio battery life and limited capacity, the Gigabeat T's gorgeous screen, excellent interface--and cost--would make it a potential nano killer.


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