Toshiba Qosmio G10

The price of the Qosmio (pronounced "koz-mio") might seem like a lot, but this audiovisual enthusiast's dream machine goes a long way to justify the outlay.

It's intended to be a coffee-table all-in-one media centre unit. It has TV playback; timeshifting and recording; DVD player and recorder; plus CD/MP3/photo abilities.

The G10 has a 17" wide-aspect display with extras such as high-brightness dual-lamps and a CSV (Clear Super View) anti-glare coating. These combine to make the display appear very bright and deliver superior viewing angles and a contrast ratio of 500:1. The display has a native resolution of 1440 x9 00 pixels, and it's driven by a 128MB DDR Nvidia GeForce FX Go 5700 graphics controller. The notebook achieved top-notch performance scores in our tests: 12,600 in 3DMark 2001 and an average of 161fps in Unreal Tournament 2003's Face3 map.

The G10 is an ideal candidate for Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition software. A slim remote and infrared extender unit (for controlling things like pay TV set-top boxes) is also included. The output of the built-in Hauppauge analog TV tuner looks good on the LCD, and the G10's composite and S-Video inputs and outputs mean that integrating it with your existing gear is straightforward.

All this AV connectivity is aided by a hybrid of hardware and software technologies that Toshiba calls the "Qosmio Engine". Toshiba includes a Trident S3 super video processor that works together with the company's pre-installed Toshiba image enhancement utilities to perform many video enhancement tasks, including de-interlacing, dynamic colour adjustment and digital noise reduction.

The Qosmio Engine also helps drive the Qosmio player--a fast-boot Linux-based TV/CD/DVD playback interface controlled by dedicated playback buttons just above the keyboard. With it you can turn on your "TV" in about five seconds, without having to load Windows. Toshiba is planning to enable more functions, such as TV timeshifting, through free software updates.

The Qosmio G10 has four USB 2.0 slots and a single FireWire port for attaching peripherals. It includes Fast Ethernet, a 56Kbps modem and 802.11b/g Wi-Fi for connectivity, plus a multi-card reader and two 5400rpm hard disks. It has a double-layer SuperMulti DVD burner in addition to Intel's 2GHz Intel Pentium M processor (coupled with 1GB of 333MHz PC2700 DDR SDRAM).

Audio is looked after with built in harman/kardon speakers and a digital audio output. Toshiba offers various warranty upgrade options, but a one-year warranty (with courier pickup and return service) is standard.