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Surprise attack: the 30GB Toshiba Gigabeat V

Surprise attack: the 30GB Toshiba Gigabeat V

I'm back from vacation (Disneyland) and there's a lot of gadget news to sift through, including the new speaker-boasting Samsung YP-K5 (and YP-T9); Sony's new NW-E000 series (and S series); Cowon's wearable iAudio T2; all the new Archos stuff; and upcoming stuff from Sirius (Stiletto), SanDisk (Sansa c200), Microsoft (Zune), Apple (September 12), Philips (PMC), and Creative (Zen Vision:W). Wow--I leave one Magic Kingdom to arrive at another.

But the most interesting (and surprising) bit of news to me is the Toshiba Gigabeat V, which was announced September 1. The 30GB V uses the same excellent Microsoft PMC platform as one of our faves, the Toshiba Gigabeat S, but boasts a bigger screen (3.5 inches vs 2.5 inches) and better battery life (rated 25 hours vs. 12 hours for audio). Though the device has a different look and feel with a new set of controllers (and a built-in speaker), it should still be easy to use. A rated 8 hours for video playback isn't shabby either.

While this may be old news to gadget fanatics, the arrival of a Gigabeat with good battery life (mediocre battery life was the only major flaw of the S series) has me extremely excited. The $399 device (pricey) is available for preorder at Amazon and Crutchfield and should be available in October. Check back soon for our review.