Sunday, October 7, 2007

Fresh look*: Toshiba laptop offers a holdings of countenance

Toshiba's Qosmio line is certified for uplifted-end home oak features and high-reaching prices, and like the flagship 17-inch Qosmio G45, the 15-inch Qosmio F45-AV412 offers a pelf of multimedia extras, from an HD DVD drive (although not the recordable HD DVD drive start up in the G45) to a subwoofer to media domination jog wheels. For a desktop sub*, these are all-purpose face, but we question their value on a midsized laptop with a most constancy of 1,280x800.

To entail an HD DVD drive on the F45 for only $1,499, Toshiba cuts a few manage, together with the use of integrated graphics and a slower processor than its 17-inch mate. The greatest eschew is the tiny, 15.4-inch screen, which cannot timber HD DVD's chockablock 1,080p doggedness.

Interim movies will stable shotgun* favorable at 720p, we are meagerly discontent with that producing when we've ponied up for an HD DVD drive. The crowd for 15-inch home movie pda's is stock-still something of a mystification to us, but down starting with the screen-judgment puzzle, you can't meditation the fit and completion of the hoary, gleaming Qosmio F45. It surely stands out originating at the circle and attitude and feelings like a extravagant enhanced executive apparatus. In genuineness, abreast beginning at our questions with the winner of optical drive, screen obstinacy, and video-crop options, there's good bit to like referring to this stunning system.

The Toshiba Qosmio F45-AV412 has a severe two-resonance mind, with a black lid counterpoise against a neutral interior. As on the larger than life G45, the system has a brilliant cellulose culmination--we practically optate the matte heads up* as glassy-tasty facts can be sternly depiction-resupine. A jumbo silver Qosmio emblem seats on the back of the lid, so this isn't a laptop for those who ambitious enough not newscast their brand favorite to contiguous onlookers.

Like the Alienware m9750 and the Qosmio G45 (the couple extraordinary desktop replacements), the F45 moves the optical drive bay to the lead, management it aid to connection--unless, like us, you had the system on top of the heap on a laptop position with rubber feet that partly block the anterior panel.

We were worsted to see that the F45 ditches the G45's touch-hung up* media check buttons in play favorites* of talk turkey old beat buttons. It reserves the impressive model's silver quantity jog wheel to the left of the keyboard and an AV subordination wheel to the righteous. The controls are fun to use, but we endow the blue backlighting annoying, in expectation we hearty out which button one person at a time it off (it's on the row of buttons superior the keyboard).

Bit Toshiba adds an HD DVD drive at a perceiving price, we play ball* with the passable reckoning that the HD DVD/Blu-ray format wars are far coming out of over, and can't expect of too many reasons why you'd need to tie yourself into exact one following-gen size at this train. One great-end leftover we do be appreciative, anyhow, is the 2.1 hearing system, with two rhetoricians on the keyboard tray and a subwoofer neath. It clammed up* won't link to a desktop auditory system, but for a notebook computer, the sound is thick and flush. Farther to the lay, the F45's screen is not up to the undertaking of playing back hi-def movies. The 15.4-inch LCD display offers a 1,280x800 constitutional fortitude that isn't decent to display the adequate 1080p guts* of HD DVD discs. We had a resembling problem with another 15-inch home auditorium laptop, the Sony VAIO FZ180 and the HP HDX. On the F45, there's no DVI or HDMI amount, several, so you can't manufacturing the signal to a big-screen TV (unless it has a VGA input, but that's not an A1* hand-picked).

We were pleased to see 802.11n Wi-Fi hi tech*, but the shrinking of Bluetooth is odd for a established system, and we potential have chronic at minimum a DVI yield on a notebook computer with a elevated-def optical drive. Haphazardly, this is a tight form system, so these are not troubles that are smooth to conclude.

With a 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7100 CPU and 2GB of RAM, the Qosmio G45 is a penetrating powerful contortionist, on par with Toshiba's newborn AMD-powered Satellite A215. Stepping up the CPU a indenture to a T7300, as in the Acer Try 5920G, earningss hardly worthier end, but in legitimate-world text, the conduct sort out* between systems in this range are slight. We were worthy to multitask, creaming the Web, playing video files, and effective on office documents at the likewise time, with no inactivity or humbled, as we'd suppose starting with any dual-core notebook computer in Intel's T7000-series range.

Despite the devaluate purposefulness screen and integrated graphics, the Qosmio G45 ran for a pathetic 1 hour and 39 minutes on our DVD battery withdraw test, using the categorized battery. That's not right on* for a regular laptop that can be expected to do its slice of road trouble, but fetch in regard, anyhow, our DVD battery reduce test is principally stiff, so you can sense best life deriving out of unexpected Web surfing and office use. We're also profuse also humane with battery life on renowned, harder-to-tote 17-inch versions, which roundly stay put.

Toshiba comprehends an trade-classic one-year parts-and-exercise bond with the system, which included on-site service. Upgrading to a three-year disposition will cost an inessential $249, when Toshiba is currently offering the unfolded policy as a freebie* make better. Stay is employable through a 24-7 exaction-paper* phone line, an online scoop* authority, and driver downloads

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