Toshiba's well-liked gigabeat series of portable media players has, until now, been confined to the hard disk category. The new 2GB gigabeat U Series certainly breaks the mold. It's a tiny, attractive flash memory-based device that sells for $100—a full $50 cheaper than the 2GB iPod nano. What the U Series lacks in grace (its graphics and tiny screen are unremarkable) it makes up for in ease-of-use. Navigation is straight-forward using the "PlusPad" buttons and the Menus don't bog you down with convoluted paths and too many choices, unlike the RCA Opal or Cowon iAUDIO 7. This player is by no means a masterpiece, but it is reasonably priced, boasts both FM and line-in recording, looks pretty cool, and is a breeze to operate. All in all, it's a strong first showing for Toshiba in the flash-based player market.

The U Series is much thicker than a nano, but still small at 3 by 1.4 by 0.5 inches and 1.5 ounces. With such a sexy physical design, this player's ho-hum screen graphics are a big disappointment. The front face houses a 1.1 inch OLED, below which are two buttons: Back and Menu (though they are labeled with symbols, not words). The lower half of the front face is occupied by Toshiba's PlusPad array of navigation buttons. Each branch of the plus sign performs different functions in different screens, but they work intuitively for navigation and volume control. The center of the PlusPad is the Enter button, and it operates much in the same way the central button on the iPod wheel works. On the top panel, there is a slider that controls power and the Hold function, and the lower panel houses a mini USB port, a strap holder, and the headphone/line-in jack. The right-hand side of the player has a reset pinhole.

Unfortunately the included earbuds didn't fit my ears very well and didn't sound that amazing, either—you should really upgrade, folks. Through my Shure SE210 earphones, the U Series sounded great, whether I listened with flat settings or tweaked the EQ a bit to boost the low end. The player also comes with a USB cable, a quick start manual, and a CD with Windows Media Player 11 on it.

The fact that the CD includes WMP 11 instead of proprietary software is a plus, in my opinion. Of course, Toshiba could've made software, like Samsung and RCA do, but instead the company chose to focus on the player and provide you with the easiest PC-based (non-iTunes) music management software there is. Loading the U Series via WMP 11, as with just about any player, is an easy and organized process.

File compatibility, however, is not the gigabeat's strong suit. The only files the U Series will play are MP3 (all bit rates up to 320 kbps and VBR), WMA (including WMA Lossless), and WAV. In the photo department, the player will only display JPG, and the files look pretty crumby on the tiny screen. Regardless, loading and navigating through your photos is a piece of cake.

While perusing the menu system of the U Series is not a pure joy like it is with the iriver Clix or the iPhone's iPod section, it's still quite straightforward. After powering up (which is a quick process—the player resumes playback of the last file you were listening to within a couple seconds), pressing the Back (upper left-hand) button will take you to the main screen. Here, succinctly listed, are all of your main menu options: Library (where music files are stored), FM radio (including recording), Line-in recording, Photos, Timer (a simple stopwatch that is super easy to set-up, use, and clear), and Settings, where you can adjust time and date, clock display, plus auto off functions.

While navigation may be easy, the player makes some annoying sounds when selecting menu options. No, I'm not talking about the standard clicks every player seems to make these days, I mean internal processing squeals that while not loud, certainly make the device sound like it's working really hard. There's no reason the user should hear these noises through the earbuds.

In the music library, you can navigate by Artist, Album, Playlist, or Bookmarks. Bookmarking a track is simple. If you are not already on the "now playing" screen, use the Back button to get there. Once there, just press menu and the options are A-B repeat, Add or Remove Bookmark (within Bookmarks, you have a choice of several different "favorites" folders to place the track in, essentially creating a mini playlist), and Playback Settings. This is where you can set the five-band EQ to your liking, whether that means leaving things flat, using presets, or making your own (I actually enjoyed boosting the bass a little). Playmodes are pretty standard. You get Normal, Repeat One, Repeat All, Shuffle, and Shuffle & Repeat. You can also set the Playback Settings on the main library page. Switching between playing music and, say, the FM tuner immediately pauses the track and keeps its place should you decide to go back and finish the song later.

There is one slight annoyance I ran into when scrolling through artist names or albums. If you hold down the navigation button for long enough, when you lift your finger, it will continue scrolling for a few listings. In concept, it's not unlike what the iPhone does on a list page when you drag and remove your finger quickly. In practice though, it's not a big enough screen for this function to be useful or graceful. Also, it's a shame that the word "The" at the beginning of an artist's name qualifies it for file-under-T status on the artist menu. So if you can't find The Walkmen under W, you know where to look…

Using the FM radio is as easy as it should be. Once in the radio section, press the Menu button to adjust the tuning mode (you can manually tune or skip via presets), access the record function, or add the current channel as a preset. Recording couldn't be simpler: select "record" from the menu and a "Start" button appears, which gets replaced by a "Stop" button once you go into record by pressing Enter. Your recorded files appear in the Library, at the end of the Artist menu, under FM recordings.

The major limitation of the Line-In record option is the fact that, by virtue of it using the headphone jack, it cannot be monitored. There is at least a visual display with meters for Left and Right channels. Adjusting the output volume of your source is the only way to control the level. There is an Auto-Sync function that you should probably keep off—any quiet moments in a song run the risk of being mistaken as silence between tracks and the player will automatically create a new file when sound resumes. This is useful for recording certain sources, but not for dynamic music. I managed to make a decent sounding stereo recording of a Flaming Lips song using my iPod as the source, headphone jack to gigabeat Line In.

The player's rechargeable battery has a rated life of 20 hours. My rundown tests yielded a respectable 18 hours and 25 minutes.

The gigabeat U Series doesn't try to knock your socks off. There's no video function because it would look terrible on its small screen (Cowon should have followed the same path with their iAUDIO 7). At heart this is just a simple, well-designed flash player. The graphics may not be sexy, but the attractive physical design makes up for it. Plus, the device's FM tuner and recorder, along with line-in recording, make the gigabeat a solid purchase in the 2 GB portable media player department. And, at the moment anyway, it is $50 cheaper than a 2 GB nano.

Toshiba offers a one-year limited warranty on the gigabeat U Series. For product support, visit toshibadirect.com

Compare the flash players mentioned above side by side.