Before the release of Toshiba Gigabeat T400, iPod Nano, Creative Zen and SanDisk Sansa View were considered to be the best available flash MP3 players. However, their dominating rule couldn’t survive for long. With its stylish user interface, ultra-large color screen, outstanding sound quality and hermetic integration with Windows Media Center , Toshiba Gigabeat T400 conquered the MP3 player market within no time. Let’s take a closer look at Toshiba Gigabeat T400.

The Design of Toshiba Gigabeat T400
Toshiba Gigabeat T400 is a small device, measuring 3.37 inches in length, 2.13 inches in width and 0.4 inch in depth. The front portion is dominated by 2.4-inch QVGA screen, which is capable of providing high resolution of 320 x 240 pixels. Unlike Gigabeat S, which comes in stylish silver metal casing, Gigabeat T400 has glossy black plastic casing.

Below the screen is the control panel consisting of a PlusPad control, which is surrounded by four buttons. The PlusPad is used for adjusting the volume, scrolling through the list or skipping between tracks. The four buttons are used for switching between menus, playing/pausing and for calling the main menu. The entire control panel occupies only 1-inch by 1-inch space. At the bottom edge of Toshiba Gigabeat T400, a power switch, 3.5 millimeter headphone jack and a mini USB port are present.

The portable Windows Media Center of this flash MP3 player is somewhat archaic, but it is still the most instinctive and modish user interface. The main menu is divided into five sections viz . TV, Music, Pictures, Video and Settings. The menu provides multiple views for sorting the contents by date, name or ID3 attribute. The artwork pop ups appear next to the selections in the album view, but during playback, they can also be viewed full-screen.

The Features of Toshiba Gigabeat T400
Toshiba Gigabeat T400 supports MP3, WMA Lossless, WMA purchased or subscription files and WAV files. Besides these, T400 not only supports video playback function, but also scrubs and edits long videos meticulously. With the aid of Windows Media Player, the video files can be easily converted and transferred. Windows Media Player also supports the photo viewer feature, which organizes JPEG images.

Toshiba Gigabeat T400 is an MTP device that can be used either with Windows XP or with XP Media Center Edition. Mac and Linux users can use T400 only through generic UMS mode. Gigabeat T400 does not support audible audiobooks. Moreover, bookmarking/auto-resume function, direct photo importer and FM radio tuner are also absent.

Performance of Toshiba Gigabeat T400
The sound quality of Toshiba Gigabeat T400 is simply unbeatable. With seven EQ preset, the sound can be adjusted to a certain extent. However, most of the time adjustments are not required. Due to excellent sound quality, the absence of user-definable five band EQ as found on Gigabeat U, and other sound enhancement options as found in Sony NWZ-S610 and Cowon D2 is not particularly felt.

Gigabeat T400 comes with harmonics option that allows the user to activate Toshiba’s patented H2C sound enhancement feature. This feature compensates all the higher and lower range frequencies lost during data compression. Although the effect is somewhat subtle, but it is useful for those who are looking to squeeze the best performance out of their flash MP3 player.

The video quality of Gigabeat T400 is good, but not better than its excellent sound quality. The contents recorded by Windows Media Center DVR appear sharp, but high-resolution contents, as DivX and AVI Movies, transcoded by Windows Media Player appear quite dull.

The battery life of Toshiba Gigabeat T400 is not at all impressive. While iPod Nano’s battery life has crossed the 30-hours mark, Gigabeat T400’s battery lasts only for 15-hours. Another drawback is its limited storage capacity. 4GB internal memory is too small for a multimedia flash MP3 player. Furthermore, T400 provides no expansion slot.

In nutshell, Toshiba Gigabeat T400 is the best flash MP3 player for those music lovers who want the best sound quality at the lowest price.