Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV650 Review
Toshiba's Qosmio line of notebooks are the poster children for multimedia excellence. Always loaded with the latest mobile technology from Intel, gorgeous and bright screens, Windows XP Media Center Edition, TV tuner, and plenty of other multimedia goodies. Today we're looking at the Qosmio G35-AV650, the current middle-of-the-line Qosmio model available. The Qosmio multimedia experience starts at $2,399 with the G35-AV600, but goes up to the G35-AV660 at $3,499.Overview
Toshiba's Qosmio line of notebooks are the poster children for multimedia excellence. Always loaded with the latest mobile technology from Intel, gorgeous and bright screens, Windows XP Media Center Edition, TV tuner, and plenty of other multimedia goodies. Today we're looking at the Qosmio G35-AV650, the current middle-of-the-line Qosmio model available. The Qosmio multimedia experience starts at $2,399 with the G35-AV600, but goes up to the G35-AV660 at $3,499.
The AV650 uses Intel's Centrino Duo platform, sporting the T2500 2.0GHz processor and 3945ABG wireless card. You get a high resolution WUXGA (1920x1200) screen powered by NVIDIA's GeForce Go 7600 with 256MB of GDDR3 VRAM. Every port you could want is on this puppy, including HDMI video output perfect for watching HD-DVD movies on your high definition home theater. Speaking of HD-DVD of course, the Qosmio AV650 sports an optical drive capable of playing HD-DVD movies! Enticed by this feature filled Qosmio yet? Read on to find out what other surprises this laptop has in store!
Design
Portability
Let's just put it this way: none. Weighing in at a hefty 10.1lbs, the only people wanting to tote this around are looking for a workout at the same time. With dimensions of 16" x 11.6" x 1.79", you aren't likely to be able to open this up on your seatback tray in coach class on an airpline either. Any questions?
Case and Design
Like most entertainment electronics these days, the Qosmio is designed to be pleasing in both form and function. The silver-on-black theme is attractive, but subtle. When you open the Qosmio, you'll notice the polished black interior reflecting back at you. The brushed silver mouse buttons & volume control, striking large speakers, and blue accent lights really stand out.
On the front you'll find a large LED indicator panel with the following indicators left to right: AC Power, System Power, Battery, Hard Drive Activity, Media card reader, and WiFi.
If that weren't enough, you've got a system control panel at the top of the keyboard, left to right: Power, TV Playback, CD/DVD Playback, Play/Pause, Stop/Eject, Previous, Next, Record, Brightness Down, Brightness Up, Dolby Sound enable, TV Output enable. And the final control feature of this system, the stylish silver volume knob:
The overall design quality of the Qosmio is rather high, with fit and finish being top notch. Our only complaint is in regards to the screen and how it is secured to the notebook, which you can read more about in the Display section.
Keyboard
For those who perused our Portege M400 review, you'll remember well the odd-ball keyboard arrangement Toshiba notebooks have. The Start & Context Menu keys are in the upper right and the Tilde & Delete keys are on either side of the spacebar. This configuration makes fast typing very difficult at first, but one does get used to it. Weird layout aside, the quality of the keyboard was excellent. There is no flexing, fairly quiet when typing fast, and comfortable to use for long periods of time.
| Qosmio AV650 Keyboard | |
Number of keys | 85 keys |
| Number of rows | 85 keys |
| Key Pitch/Stroke | 85 keys |
| Special/Function Keys | 85 keys |
Toshiba has included a unique feature on the keyboard. When you press the Fn key, a green LED lights up below the F10 key, something we've not seen from any other manufacturer.
Design Continued
Touchpad
For the normal uses of a touchpad, the Qosmio has a standard one. The response is smooth and the buttons have the same shallow, solid click to them as the Portege M400 tablet. Where the Qosmio's touchpad truly excels is in its non-touchpad usage.
As you can see from the picture above, the Qosmio's toucpad has an alternate function. If you tap the icon with double arrows in the top right corner, it will light up the bright blue backlight on the touchpad and enable all of the secondary functions. The top row consists of E-mail, WiFi, and Print functions, with the bottom row all launching user-defined applications. On the right side where you would normally scroll, you can adjust the volume level as well. Not only is this neat feature really cool looking, it is functional as well.
Connectivity Options
The first thing one notices on the front is the prominent HD-DVD drive, followed by the microphone, display latch, LED indicators, and WiFi on/off switch.
Being a desktop replacement, most users won't mind the plethora of connections on the rear: coaxial TV tuner input, power input, cooling vents, network connection, dual USB 2.0 ports, VGA output, HDMI output, and S-Video output (left to right). Phew, that's a lot of ports!
Another gaggle of ports is present on the left consisting of two USB 2.0 ports, 5-in-1 card reader, dual PC Card/ExpressCard slot, 4-pin Firewire, microphone input, S/PDIF output, and headphone output.
The right side is more barren with only the volume dial, composite & S-video inputs, modem jack, and security lock slot. The video inputs are a function of the integrated TV tuner and not generally found on laptops.
As you can tell from the descriptions above, Toshiba's Qosmio is chock full of input & output ports. With plenty of USB ports, tons of audio/video inputs & outputs, and an HD-DVD drive, what more could one ask for on a multimedia machine? Well, regular video editors might appreciate a full-size 8-pin Firewire port given size really isn't a limitation here. Straight-up DVI output with a VGA adapter would make more sense than a VGA out, but you can always adapt the HDMI to DVI.
We really liked how Toshiba incorporated both Express Card and PC Card slots. Express Card isn't quite prevalent enough yet to offer everything a multimedia entusiast might want, so both standards are included for maximum compatibility.
Heat and Noise
Most people don't use 17" notebooks in their lap, but those who desire knee problems don't have to worry about burns. The Qosmio runs fairly cool, idling around 40 degrees Celscius and running around 50 C during moderate usage. We never noticed any hot spots on the bottom, but with a 1.73" thick chassis there should've been plenty of room to cool the already chilly Core Duo processor.
Nor do you often hear fan noise from Toshiba's Qosmio. Under high load while gaming or playing HD-DVD content, you may hear the fans spin up some more but temperatures just never get excessive enough to warrant high fan speed.
Upgrading and Expansion
Since the Qosmio features dual hard drives, one would hope upgrading those could be done by the user. In fact, Toshiba makes the process very simple, as you can see from the picture below. You can also easily access both RAM sticks on the underside. The CPU isn't easily accessible, but a resourceful owner could probably get to it. One could theoretically put in a Core 2 Duo were Toshiba to offer an updated BIOS (or the user could load the AV660's BIOS), but why would someone risk that on such an expensive laptop?
Features
Technical Specifications
The Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV650 uses Intel's Core Duo processor, the dual core T2500. This CPU sports a 2MB L2 cache, runs on a 667 MHz Font Side Bus, and is built on a 65nm manufacturing process. Maximum power dissipation (Thermal Design Power, TDP) of the Core Duo models is at 31W, higher than its Pentium M predecessor yet the average power usage is even less. Intel's 945PM chipset is used in combination with the discrete NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 256MB graphics. The NVIDIA graphics provide decent gaming performance and better video decoding (although not with regard to HD-DVD) than integrated solutions. Dual channel memory is supported and in-use on the Qosmio AV650.
The Qosmio line features dual hard drives and of course come equipped with Toshiba-brand drives. The hard drives included in our machine are dual 2.5" 100GB Toshiba MK1032GSX, spinning at 5400RPM with 16MB cache. In a perfectly silent room, you might hear a little clicking as the hard drive spins away, but its unlikely. Performance is excellent on this hard drive and the whopping 200GB of storage space is extremely useful. Toshiba includes software to setup RAID 0 (data striping for performance) or RAID 1 (data mirroring for security) as well.
Qosmio's have a spanking sound system build in featuring two large speakers above the keyboard and a built-in subwoofer. To say the least, movies and games will blow you away (for a notebook). The volume gets incredibly loud, mid and high range sounds are reproduced clearly, and bass is much better than any other notebook. You don't get any earth-shattering bass, but there is much more depth to low frequency sounds than in most laptops.
Display
If you're purchasing a high end multimedia machine, you're going to want a stunning display to match. The 17" WUXGA screen is extraordinarily bright, and the colors are very vibrant & true. In a dark room you'll want to lower the brightness to its minimum, the display is just that bright. Response time is respectable, exhibiting very little motion blur while scrolling text or gaming. Of course with 1920x1200 pixels, you have plenty of desktop real estate for multi-tasking and watching movies in full 1080p HD resolution.
When viewing the screen from the side, you can still see the picture on the display. However the colors tend to shift easily when viewing from anything but straight-on. There isn't noticeable color inversing like on HP screens, but the colors do distort and you can't get the full viewing experience unless you're looking mostly straight-on. We also noticed that due to the sheer size of the screen and the use of what appears to be only ABS plastic hinges, the screen does not feel very solid staying up. It wobbles if you jostle the notebook and in general just doesn't feel very sturdy, although we imagine it is costly and difficult to engineer very solid hinges on such a large screen.
Optical Drive
Supporting a whopping 12 formats, the Qosmio's HD-DVD optical drive will do everything under the sun. Having to incorporate the HD-DVD technology as well as your "standard" CD & DVD features, the drive itself is much thicker than what you usually find in a notebook. Positioned on the front of the machine, the drive ejects with quite a lot of force so you don't have to pull it open as far, unlike most notebook drives. It then shuts with a satisfying click and doesn't make a lot of noise when reading CD's, DVD's, or HD-DVD's. Unfortunately the DVD burn speeds are slow at only 4X, disappointing for a multimedia machine. We will go into more details about HD-DVD playback in a later section.
The supported read and write capabilities are as follows:
- Read: 24X CD-ROM/CD-R, 8X DVD-ROM, 1X HD DVD-ROM
- Write: 16X CD-R, 4X DVD+/-R, 4X DVD+/-RW, 2X DVD+R DL, 3X DVD-RAM
HD-DVD Playback
So you're one of those people who has to have the latest technology and you've just got a boat load of HD-DVD movies ready to be watched right? Of course not, but if you did then this laptop would take the cake of all your multimedia playback needs. Toshiba was able to supply us with an HD-DVD content disc which was loaded with a bunch of HD movie previews and some "informational" spiels illustrating the difference between regular DVD and HD-DVD. I will say the playback quality and sheer sharpness of this HD content was excellent. Watching these HD movie trailers and cranking the volume on this 2.1 laptop speaker set, you can't help but get immersed in the color saturated and obscenely sharp images filling the spacious 17" 1080p widescreen.
And now for the downside: playback maturity. When I say playback maturity, I'm referring to the maturity of the entire HD-DVD video playback experience. Since the playback software still isn't developed or supported by the major computer DVD software companies like Intervideo or Cyberlink, you don't have a full featured player. It appears that the standalone HD-DVD playback application included by Toshiba is actually developed by WinDVD, but it is a barebones, no frills "just play it" application. The multitude of options and features offered by playback software like Cyberlink's PowerDVD are something a multimedia enthusiast would want in a multimedia notebook. Toshiba just doesn't offer that kind of support for HD-DVD yet, the price you pay for being an early adopter.
If the lack of software features wasn't enough, you're going to be hard pressed to do anything else while watching HD-DVD content. Using the included HD-DVD playback software, both CPU cores were pegged at 100% utilization and when certain Windows background tasks intruded, the video dropped some frames and skipped around. The most hopeful solution for this is that software is developed which allows offloading of HD-DVD decoding to the GPU, but even more mature playback software should help.
Features Continued
Wi-Fi
As a Centrino-branded notebook, the Qosmio uses Intel's 3945ABG wireless card. Performance was as expected and satisfactory. Unlike most companies, Toshiba has included some utilities to manager your WiFi connection. The ConfigFree utility offers a few different tools to manage your network connections, but overall these are just your standard options with a pretty user interface. It is not nearly as functional as Lenovo's Access Connections, and less practical than the Intel utility due to its convoluted interface, but cool nonetheless.
Battery
The included battery sports 6-cells with 4700mAh of capacity. We really hope no one buying a 17" WUXGA HD-DVD desktop replacement cares much about battery life, but for reference you'll see about 2-3 hours of usage from the machine. If you're playing HD-DVD content, expect this to drop dramatically due to the high CPU utilization.
AC Adapter
Most laptops come with a 90W AC adapter, the more portable ones come with 60-70W adapters, but beasts like this use a massive 120W adapter. This isn't something you want to fit in your briefcase, but will sit nicely under your desk. The cords are long enough to reach a distant outlet, with about six feet of length on each cord. A three-prong grounded plug is required.
Fingerprint Scanner
Biometric security is becoming common on most business laptops and even some consumer laptops these days. Toshiba has included a fingerprint scanner just below the right end of the keyboard, a fairly standard place on notebooks.
The software setup is as easy to use as any other we've come across. Simply select which finger you want to register, scan the appropriate finger three times successfully, and you're good to go. As with most fully featured fingerprint software, Toshiba's solution allows you to password protect the hard drive with the fingerprint scanner as well as associate website logins with your fingerprint.
Remote Control
So if you're going to watch TV on a laptop, you might as well get the full experience and sit back with your remote control. The remote control works through the Windows XP Media Center interface, allowing you to control most any multimedia option within MCE. Once you launch the MCE interface, the remote will let you navigate and control multimedia to your desire. While not as fully featured as some aftermarket solutions, this standard Windows MCE remote will give you control over any feature in MCE that you need.
Setup Method
The Qosmio AV650 was set to run at full performance by setting the power scheme set to 'Home/Office Desk' with the AC plugged in, meaning that the CPU will not underclock while running the tests. For the battery performance test, the power scheme was set to 'Portable/Laptop'. This activates Intel's Enhanced Speedstep technology, which lowers CPU speed when not needed, thus increasing battery life. Screen brightness and audio were both set to 50% and Wi-Fi were turned on. Each test was repeated 3 times to ensure accuracy. Before each test was run, the laptop was rebooted and its hard drive defragmented.
Bapco SYSmark2004SE is popular benchmark suite consists of two different performance scenarios and generates an overall score by taking the geometric mean of the individual scores.
Internet Content Creation: In this scenario, the content creator creates a product related website targeting a broadband and narrowband audience. The user first renders a 3D model to a bitmap, while preparing web pages using a web site publishing tool. The user opens a video editing package, creates a movie from several raw input movie cuts and sound cuts and starts exporting it. While waiting on this operation, the user imports the rendered image into an image-processing package; modifies it and saves the results. Back in the 3D modeling software, the user modifies a 3D model and exports it to a vector-graphics format. Once the movie is assembled, the user edits it and creates special effects using one of the modified images as input. The user extracts content from an archive. Meanwhile, he uses an animation creation tool to open the exported 3D vector graphics file. He modifies it by including other pictures and optimizes it for faster animation. The final movie with the special effects is then compressed in a format that can be broadcast over broadband Internet. The web site is given the final touches and the system is scanned for viruses.
Office Productivity: In this scenario, the office productivity user creates a marketing presentation and supporting documents for a new product. The user receives email containing a collection of documents in a compressed file. The user reviews his email and updates his calendar while a virus checking software scans the system. The corporate web site is viewed and the user begins creating the collateral documents. The user also accesses a database and runs some queries. A collection of documents are compressed. The queries' results are imported into a spreadsheet and used to generate graphical charts. The user then transcribes a document.. The user edits and adds elements to a slide show template. Finally, the user looks at the results of his work (both the slide show and the portable document) in an Internet browser.
Bapco MobileMark 2005 is the latest version of the premier notebook battery life and performance under battery life metric based on real world applications.
Office Productivity: The workloads in this category model a mobile professional at a fictitious automobile company. The worker creates documents using Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, accesses email, and creates graphics and animation with Photoshop and Flash to include in a multimedia presentation. An Internet browser is used to view presentations. The user also invokes file compression and virus detection in the background.
DVD Playback: The DVD playback 2005 workload is based on a 1 hours 55 minute movie that BAPCo has created from content provided by BMW®. The DVD playback test starts the movie player application, sets up a full screen playback, and the loops over the content on the disk in the DVDplayer. This playback will continue until system shutdown at battery depletion.
3DMark 2001 SE PRO build 3.3.0 measures graphics performance by benchmarking the CPU, memory, and graphics through a series of 21 tests, including simulated games, theoretical tests, DX8 feature tests, and image quality tests. Resolution was set to 1024x768 with all default settings.
3DMark 2001 SE PRO build 3.3.0 measures graphics performance by benchmarking the CPU, memory, and graphics through a series of 21 tests, including simulated games, theoretical tests, DX8 feature tests, and image quality tests. Resolution was set to 1024x768 with all default settings.
3DMark2005 build 1.2.0 is a graphics intensive benchmark best suited for the latest generation of DirectX 9.0 graphics cards. It combines high quality 3D tests, CPU tests, and is the first benchmark to require Pixel Shader 2.0 support, making this a highly stressful 3D benchmark.
3DMark2006 build 1.1 is the latest graphics benchmark from Futuremark. It incorporates the latest graphics technology by testing High Dynamic Range and SM3.0, providing a look at how graphics cards will perform with the latest games.
PCMark 2005 Advanced build 1.1.0 is the latest update to Futuremark's popular overall system benchmarking program. The 2005 version adds multithreading, DirectX 9, Windows Media Player 10, virus scanning, High Defintion video playback (WMVHD), and a vast number of other tests to its suite. Testing your computer's CPU, RAM, hard drive and graphics card, PCMark05 drives your computer to the max to determine its strengths and weaknesses.
Configurations
| Configurations | Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV650 | Acer TravelMate 8204 WLMi |
Processor | Intel Core Duo T2500 (2.0GHz, 2MB L2 Cache) | Intel Core Duo T2500 (2.0GHz, 2MB L2 Cache) |
| Front Side Bus | 667MHz | 667MHz |
| Chipset | Intel 945PM | Intel 945PM |
| Wireless LAN | Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG | Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG |
| LCD | 17" WUXGA (1920x1200) Ultimate TruBrite | 15.4" WSXGA+ (1680x1050) |
| Hard Drive | Dual 100GB Toshiba MK1032GSX 5400RPM 16MB Cache SATA | 120GB Seagate Momentus 5400RPM SATA |
| Memory | 1GB DDR2 667 SODIMM | 2GB DDR2 533 SODIMM |
| Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 256MB | ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 256MB |
| Video Output | VGA, S-Video, HDMI Output | VGA, S-Video, DVI Output |
| Optical Drive | DVD SuperMulti Burner & HD-DVD ROM | DVD SuperMulti Burner |
| Modem | Integrated V.92 Modem | Integrated V.92 Modem |
| Ethernet | Intel PRO/1000 VE | Intel PRO/1000 VE |
| Audio | Azalia HD Audio | Azalia HD Audio |
| Audio Output | Headphone/SPDIF Output | Headphone/SPDIF Output |
| Ports | 4xUSB 2.0 Ports | 4xUSB 2.0 Ports |
| Weight | 10.1lbs | 6.6lbs |
| Size (W x D x H) | 16.0" x 11.6" x 1.79-2.11" | 14.3" x 10.7" x 1" |
| Operating System | Windows XP Media Center Edition | Windows XP Pro |
| Battery | 9-cell 7050mAh | 9-cell 7800mAh |
Performance
Bapco SYSmark2004SE
Internet Content Creation
As we've seen before, the entire SYSmark suite benefits noticeably from increased RAM. The Acer with 2GB RAM does well here.
Office Productivity
2GB RAM again prevails here, but the Qosmio truly isn't far behind.
Total Score
The Acer has a slight lead overall thanks to its increased RAM, but in the end Toshiba's Qosmio with the same T2500 CPU performs admirably.
PCMark05 Advanced
| PCMark05 | Toshiba AV650 | Acer 8204 |
CPU | 4656 | 4643 |
| Memory | 3166 | 3134 |
| Graphics | 3826 | 2304 |
| HDD | 3073 | 3297 |
The CPU and memory scores here are mostly a tossup, since the type of RAM and CPU model are the same between the two machines. What hands the win to the Qosmio here is what PCMark05 sees as a resoundingly more powerful graphics card. We'll be looking at 3D performance shortly, but you'll see PCMark05 isn't too far off base.
Multi-Tasking Performance
We added these tests for a better way to compare dual core systems. Looking at numerous testing methods and results, we found the existing SYSmark2004SE benchmarks to be an excellent choice. The tests are easily performed and repeatable, providing a consistent and simple way to test dual core systems. The three sub-tests below show a noticeable correlation in CPU and memory performance, the two most important aspects of a multi-CPU system.
Bapco SYSmark2004SE
3D Content Creation
"The user renders a 3D model to a bitmap using 3ds max 5.1, while preparing web pages in Dreamweaver MX. Then the user renders a 3D animation in a vector graphics format."
Rather surprisingly, the two machines are in a dead tie here. Despite the Acer's increased RAM, neither has a clear advantage.
2D Content Creation
"The user uses Premiere 6.5 to create a movie from several raw input movie cuts and sound cuts and starts exporting it. While waiting on this operation, the user imports the rendered image into Photoshop 7.01, modifies it and saves the results. Once the movie is assembled, the user edits it and creates special effects using After Effects 5.5."
Working with larger files and more memory intensive usage in general, the Acer pulls ahead here thanks to its 2GB RAM.
Web Publication
"The user extracts content from an archive using WinZip 8.1. Meanwhile, he uses Flash MX to open the exported 3D vector graphics file. He modifies it by including other pictures and optimizes it for faster animation. The final movie with the special effects is then compressed using Windows Media Encoder 9 series in a format that can be broadcast over broadband Internet. The web site is given the final touches in Dreamweaver MX and the system is scanned by VirusScan 7.0."
This time the Qosmio leads, but the difference is within the expected error range. The two systems are well-matched for more sedate multitasking, but if you start cracking out the major Adobe programs and working with large multimedia files you'll quickly see the benefit of 2GB RAM.
3D Performance
3DMark 2001 SE
Given these systems have the same CPU's and memory doesn't play a role in 3DMark01 these days, Toshiba's powerful NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 takes the lead here.
3DMark 2003
We see the same lead here, with a little more GPU-bound results.
3DMark 2005
Surprisingly, the two systems are evenly matched here. We feel that the ATI drivers in the Acer might have been more optimized for 3DMark 2003 when we ran those tests, that or these results are a simple fluke.
3DMark 2006
The latest 3D benchmark here shows the same lead we'd seen before: in two very similar systems (The Acer has 2GB RAM compared to Toshiba's 1GB), we see the 3D performance go to NVIDIA's GeForce Go 7600 GPU. Will this same trend continue with real world gaming?
Gaming Performance
Quake 4
We still see the NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 leading here, although with higher resolution and higher graphics settings like Antialiasing both systems choke easily.
This last set of real world tests concludes to us that overall, NVIDIA's GeForce Go 7600 mobile GPU performs better in current games than ATI's Mobility Radeon X1600. The Acer notebook even had 2GB RAM, compared to the Toshiba's 1GB, but both systems used the same CPU. We see consistently better performance from the Go 7600, although your performance will vary on the actual notebook configuration.
Battery Performance
Neither systems here are designed primarily for portability, but you get a solid three hours of very light usage on Toshiba's Qosmio.
Once again the Acer pulls ahead slightly, but we see nothing impressive given it is a 15.4" notebook compared to the 17" Qosmio.
Surprisingly DVD playback doesn't hurt battery life terribly. This may be because the HD-DVD combo drive is already relatively power hungry even at idle, or simply that the stunning 17" WUXGA display uses enough power to nearly negate the extra draw caused by playing a DVD.
Conclusion
Pros:
- HD-DVD drive
- High resolution display
- HDMI output and numerous other video input/output
- TV tuner
- Tons of connection ports
- Decent discrete GPU
- PC Card & Express Card support
- Dual hard drives
Cons:
- Viewing angles could be better on screen
- Chassis feels flimsy in different places
- Expensive
- 2GB RAM not included for the price
If you're considering a Toshiba Qosmio as your next computer, it is a safe bet you want every multimedia feature available without much compromise. The G35-AV650 we reviewed here has every connection one might want, dual hard drives, dual core processor, competitive NVIDIA GPU, and of course the elusive HD-DVD drive. Few notebooks have even been announced with HD-DVD, much less which ones are even available with them at this time. If you want cutting edge features with every multimedia option conceivable, then the Qosmio lineup is right up your alley.
Of course a high price tag doesn't mean the machine is perfect. Gamers will want a more powerful GPU (Of course the Qosmio is multimedia-oriented, not gaming-oriented), HD-DVD playback maxes out both CPU cores, we weren't very impressed by the screen, and 2GB RAM should be standard for the prices Toshiba is charging here. Due to the large chassis design, some parts of the Qosmio feel weaker than others. While this is certainly a symptom of the large 17" design, Toshiba needs to get a more solid feel on this $3000 machine.
Competition in this space is fierce, with 17" multimedia notebooks being offered by all the major notebook companies, but the Qosmio's true competition is few and far between. Fujitsu's Lifebook models have a good chance at competing with the Qosmio, but HP's models just don't offer the same high end package; yet HP's 17" notebooks are available for around one-third the price of the G35-AV650. Other 17" "multimedia" machines just don't have the comprehensive features of the Qosmio. We love the capabilities of Toshiba's Qosmio notebook and with a few design tweaks & more generous RAM, any high end multimedia lover should enjoy the Qosmio.
On a side note, shortly after we started reviewing the Qosmio G35-AV650, Toshiba announced the G35-AV660. This has all the same features as the AV650 featured here, with the exception of an upgrade to a Core 2 Duo T7200 (2.0GHz) and a proper 2GB RAM. With an even higher price tag of $3499, it is up to you if a more power CPU and more RAM is worth another $500! See real prices of the Core 2 Duo AV660 here.
Availability/Warranty
The Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV650 is available for $2,999 with a one year system warranty from Toshiba Direct.
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