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Hands-on with the Toshiba Gigabeat S Series Portable Media Center


Without a doubt one of the highlights of last night's Digital Experience press event was getting to play with the Gigabeat S Series, Toshiba's new portable video player running Microsoft's Portable Media Center software. The device itself was lighter and thinner than we expected, video looked crisp and clear on the Gigabeat S's 320 x 240 LCD screen (the photo above definitely does not do it justice), and switching between portrait and landscape modes was a snap. Of course, the big selling point, and what Toshiba and Microsoft are hoping will make the Gigabeat S a strong competitor for the new iPod with video, is its support for video subscription services like Vongo (which plans to offer a catalog of about a 1000 movies for download later this year). The Gigabeat S should be out sometime next month, retail price will be $299 for the 30GB version and $399 for the 60GB version.