A message to Toshiba: Learn how to support your products
For frequent readers of this thread, you will know by now that I had a less then stellar experience with the Toshiba Gigabeat S since I purchased it last June. This weekend was its funeral. Friday I got yet another error with the big scary yellow error code, so I called Toshiba. The error directed me to the owner's manual to reload the Portable Media Center software, but of course when I checked the manual there were no instructions on how to accomplish this. I highlighted this when I called and was told "Oh yeah, you will need to send it back for service." Had I done so, this would have been the 4th time since I purchased the product. I informed the support tech that I had no intentions of doing so since the error indicated a software problem. The tech told me there was nothing he could do, and I informed him (using several 4-letter words) that his company was clueless and that I would be going out and buying a new Ipod over the weekend. I purchased a new 30Gb model yesterday. The Ipod might not be as good a product as the Gigabeat was, but Apple knows how to do support. The only true support I ever got for the gigabeat came from the guys over at Mygigabeat.com.
The moral of this story is that you can put out the best product on earth from a useability prospective. But if you cannot effectively support it, it's just a worthless piece of metal and silicon. Congratulations Toshiba-I will never buy or recommend another one of your products again...period.