Tokyo -- Toshiba Corporation today announced "gigabeat G20," the world's lightest, most compact, digital audio player integrating a 1.8-inch hard disk drive. The new player takes portable music to a new level of convenience with a 20gigabyte HDD, capacity enough to store over 330 hours of music recorded at 128kbps. gigabeat G20 will be launched in Japan at the beginning of October.

The stylish aluminum alloy case of the gigabeat G20, as compact as a minidisk player, houses a versatile digital audio player that can store as many as 5,000 four-minute pieces of music or 500 ten-title CDs. This record-setting capacity is complemented by a height of only 12.7mm, a volume of 87mm³ and a weight of only 138g, all world-firsts for an audio player integrating an HDD of 1.8 inches or more. gigabeat G20 is small enough to slip into a shirt pocket but large enough to carry a library of CDs and to provide music for all moods and occasions. That experience is made all the better by a slim lithium-ion battery that can deliver over 11 hours of continuous playback between recharging.

The functionality of gigabeat G20 is enhanced by dual software support. The player is fully compatible with "Windows Media Player 9 Series," now preinstalled on new Windows PCs, and with "TOSHIBA Audio Application Ver2.0," which is bundled with gigabeat G20. Windows Media Player 9 Series can rip CDs and transfer data to gigabeat G20. TOSHIBA Audio Application supports easy creation and editing of playlists and fast downloads to gigabeat G20. Three audio formats are supported: WMA, MP3 and WAV.

gigabeat G20 takes full advantage of USB2.0 to achieve high-speed data transfers. In the Windows XP environment, on a computer with a 1GHz CPU, a CD compressed to 60MB can be downloaded in approximately 30 seconds. The player also can interface with PCs supporting USB1.1. USB integration also allows gigabeat G20 to function as a high-capacity, high-speed portable data storage device with room to spare for image-rich presentations, video sources and other digital data.

gigabeat G20 brings together Toshiba's industry-defining storage technologies, high-density packaging technologies and know-how in mobile products in a product that brings users the convenience of high capacity data storage in activities ranging from entertainment to business use.

Outline of gigabeat G20

Main Specifications

Product	Digital Audio Player "gigabeat G20"
Model	MEG200J
Supported formats	WMA (Windows Media Audio) MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3) WAV (PCM)
Sampling frequency	22.05kHz to 48kHz*1
Bit rate	16kbps to 320kbps*1
Storage device	20GB Built-in HDD
Maximum recording time	Approximately 332 hours *in case of bit rate of 128kbps
Continuous playback time	Approximately 11 hours * In case of normal temperature (25), back light off, volume in the middle range, 128Mbps, WMA audio data of 44.1kHz. Continuous playback time differs with conditions of use, ambient temperature, age of built-in batteries, and is not guaranteed.
Display	Blue backlight LCD (160 x 86 dots, black and white)
Languages supported	Japanese, English, French, Spanish, and German
Play mode	Normal playback, folder playback, repeat, folder repeat, folder random, all music random
Intro-scan	10-second introduction, 60-second introduction
Equalizer	FLAT, BASS +, BASS++, LOUDNESS
USB terminal	USB 2.0/USB 1.1*2
Headphones terminal	3.5mm jack, stereo type, load impedance 16
Dimensions	76.5mm (W) x 12.7mm (H) x 89.5mm (D) (excluding protuberance)
Weight	Approximately 138g (main body only)
Power supply	Built-in lithium ion battery; AC adopter
Operating environment of PC * Can only be used with a PC that meets these conditions	Applicable PC: IBM PC/AT compatible OS: Windows98 Second Edition*3 /Millennium Edition/ 2000 Professional/XP Home Edition /XP Professional(Preinstalled, Japanese version only) CPU: Pentium300MHz or above (Pentium 1GHz or more is recommended) Memory: 128MB or more HDD available capacity: 100MB excluding audio data USB port*2 CD-ROM drive Internet Explorer 5.01or later (as of August 2003. Compatibility with future versions is not guaranteed.)
Main options	AC adapter, power-supply cable (for use in Japan only), recharge stand, USB cable, wired remote controller, headphone, software CD-ROM

• Windows and WindowsMedia are registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and in other countries.
• Pentium is trademark or registered trademark of Intel Corporation in the U.S.
• Operation not guaranteed for all PCs. Compatibility not guaranteed with hand-built PCs. Operation not guaranteed with computers installed with Windows 2000 Professional/XP Professional with a dual CPU.
• Specifications subject to change without notice.