Pg 2 Toshiba's New MobilPhile MP3/WMA Personal Music Player review, ready to take on Apple's iPod? by

Toshiba’s MobilPhile full review, pg 2
11/22/02 by Angel Lee

The MobilePhile will store 1000 songs in MP3 or WMA format that are an average of 5 minute length @ 128 Kbps, same as the 5 GB iPod. It has a built-in advanced Lithium-Ion rechargeable battery that promises 18 hours of playback time (with the LCD screen backlight set at the shortest timeout).

The music quality through our test equipment and our reviewer cumulative ears, told us that quality was significantly less than the iPod. Background noise was 9 db higher on the MobilPhile, while frequency range was 12% less than the Apple iPod.

Other negatives are:

The display is 1/3 the size of the iPod’s
When illuminated “blue”, it’ not bright enough to read easily.
When the illumination is off, forget reading it in-doors.
Song selection navigation is terrible,
Creating “Play lists” is amateur.
It weighs too much, a lot more than the iPod.
Battery life was less than advertised, about 12 hours under typical use..
The inline remote control is awkward to use.
Editing the playlist is horrible, the iPod is superior here.
It’s vastly over priced ($349.99), $50 over the
5 GB iPod. A 10GB iPod is only $399.

Toshiba told us that there is no 10 GB or 20 GB PC Card HDD in the works.

There was a very good opportunity for Toshiba to really come out with a first class contender in competing with the reigning king, the Apple iPod. It’s just not going to happen with this model because of the limited HDD size, it’s horrible software and encryption slowness, USB 2.0, sound quality and that it is just too expensive. Song navigation also leaves a lot to be desired.

The buttons on the front and the "navagation ring" are way too small to, even for my slender Asian female fingers to use.

To be entirely fair, the MobilPhile was certainly in its design phase long before Apple released the Window version of the iPod and the two recent price drops. However, there is no excuse for the smaller difficult to read LCD screen, the lack of an “fashionable look” (this looks like …. Industrial), and the “after-thought” software interface.

ìIf there were no Apple iPod, either Mac or Windows version, we might give the Toshiba MobilPhile some consideration .... î

Backlight off, way too hard to read in average light

We liked the removable PC Card hard drive concept, but it is by their own admission, limited in size and a likely reason for the hefty price. It’s sturdy construction was also reassuring.

If there were no Apple iPod, either Mac or Windows version, we might give the Toshiba MobilPhile some consideration, but we’d still look the other brands over carefully for consideration too

List price for the Toshiba MEG50AS: $349.99
Tech Lab Rating: 2 Thumbs Up, only. (maximum rating is five)