Toshiba has today introduced the Qosmio G20 laptop. Replacing the original Qosmio, which debuted last year, the new product continues Toshiba's '4-in-1 experience' and offers TV, audio, and DVD/HDD recording. When it was first announced, Toshiba's new-age computing effort was seen as something of a gimmick, a desk-bound laptop that wanted to take over your living room. A year on, the concept has been so successful that, according to Toshiba, the high-end Qosmio has proven to be the best selling machine in the range.

The Qosmio G20 is housed in a new, attractive chassis (406x285x43.1mm, 4.3kg). Gone is the silver of the previous version, replaced with a shiny black lacquer. The system packs a punch under the hood, too. It's powered by an Intel Pentium M Processor 760 (2.0GHz), Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG network connection and Intel 915PM Express chipset, (533MHz front-side bus), PCIe-based nVidia GeForce Go 6600 graphics card (128MB of dedicated memory), and Harman Kardon speakers.

The Qosmio is packed with connectivity options. For instance, there's headphone, line-in, modem and Ethernet (10/100 Base-TX) ports, a single FireWire port, four USB 2.0 ports, S/PDIF (shared with headphone socket), analogue video out, TV-antenna, S-Video (line-in/out), 5-in-1 Bridge Media slot (supports SD card, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, MultiMedia Card, xD-Picture Card), Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) and Bluetooth. Unfortunately, there's no Gigabit Ethernet, biometric security options, or a digital video out connection.

Other noticeable features include a 17in. widescreen display (1440x900 pixels), sensor-touch audio/video buttons, lateral volume controls, LCD volume display and remote control, and it's the first device in the Qosmio range to include Toshiba's RAID technology. The front-loading DVD rewriter also has a new look. It looks like Toshiba has learnt a lot from previous models, making this new system lighter as well as brighter.

Bundled software comprises Toshiba utilities and drivers, an online user manual, WinDVD, ConfigFree, Microsoft's Office OneNote 2003, Sonic's Record Now!, InterVideo's WinDVD Creator (Platinum), SRS TruSurround XT technology for virtual surround sound, Windows Movie Maker 2, Microsoft's Works Suite 2005, as well as Symantec's Norton Internet Security 2005 (90-day free trial).

BIOS, May 26, 05 | Print | Send | Comments (0) | Posted In Laptop