Toshiba Qosmio G45

Toshiba Qosmio G45 Review

With HD-DVD barely hanging on in the HD format war, Toshiba has introduced a complete HD solution in the G45 laptop. The laptop comes with a HD-DVD burner as well as a plethora of features to support full capabilities from the speakers to the display.

Overview & Features

With HD-DVD barely hanging on in the HD format war, Toshiba has introduced a complete HD solution in the G45 laptop. The laptop comes with a HD-DVD burner as well as a plethora of features to support full capabilities from the speakers to the display.

Design
Upon first glance, you'll notice not only the large size and heavy weight, but also the black piano lid that contrasts the white keyboard. The case is shiny all over. The keys on the keyboard are flat and decently big, which is good for people with large hands. The touchpad is moderately sized with two large mouse buttons. Above the keyboard are shortcut keys for playback as well as keys for brightness and mirroring the desktop. The shortcut keys, as well as the speakers and on/off switch, are lit up with blue lighting that adds to the sleekness of the laptop.

After awing at the design of the laptop, you'll probably be awing in pain once you pick it up. The laptop weighs in at a hefty 10 pounds, which is heavy by laptop standards.

The G45 surprisingly is a quiet and cool laptop, considering the HD capabilities and the performance it has under the hood. While the fan does spin up a few times, unless you're using the laptop in a library, you won't notice the fan sound, especially when you're sitting back and enjoying an HD-DVD movie.

Features

Connectivity
The laptop comes with an assortment of connection, including HDMI out. On the left side, there are 2x USB, xD/SD/microSD/(ironically) MemoryStick, ExpressCard slot, and Firewire. On the other side, there are modem, 1x USB, and audio ports (line-in, microphone, headphone, and S/P DIF out). On the back, there are LAN, 2x USB, HDMI out, S-Video, DVI, power and ports for infrared remote controls. The laptop supports Bluetooth 2.0 and 802.11 a/g/n.

Web-cam
Integrated into the lid of the laptop is a 2.0 megapixel camera. While it can take up to 1600x1200 snapshots, video at that size is sluggish. For video conferencing, you'll probably want to drop down the resolution to something more manageable. Otherwise, in decent lighting, it takes good video and pictures for all you web camera-holics.

Display
With a maximum display resolution of 1920x1200, the 1080p 17' display allows you to enjoy HD content, either HD-DVD or with the digital cable tuner included. To allow for HD content, Toshiba has gone with the GeForce 8600M, which employs NVIDIA's PureVideo technology. The PureVideo technology provides a dedicated on-board processor for video and allows HDCP support (i.e. HDMI output). It also has an integrated HDTV encoder to allow for viewing 1080i/1080p TV content. Not only is the 8600M capable for viewing HD content, but it's also powerful enough for mobile gaming. With 512MB on-board the 8600M, you'll have enough power to play today's games. The 8600M supports DirectX 10.0 and is built for Vista so you'll be set for future games.

Audio
Sound-wise, the laptop has 4 Harman/kardon speakers coupled with 1 Bass Reflex sub-woofer that produces great sound when watching movies or digital cable, reaching a very sufficient volume. The speakers support Dolby ProLogic, which helps when watching HD content.

Performance & Conclusion

Performance
The laptop was built for multimedia and it does a good job performing all the multimedia tasks. The gaming benchmarking scores indicate that it will perform well with today’s PC games. Likewise, while watching HD-DVD movies, it ran pretty well with only a few minor slowdowns, which didn’t deter from the overall movie experience. In everyday tasks, from word processing, surfing the internet and the photo-editing, the G45 will do everything pretty well, thanks in part to the abundant 3GB RAM, which is the only upgradeable part on the laptop. The battery performance when watching a movie was dismal. It was able to get through half of Batman Begins on HD-DVD. The battery died after 1:14 into the movie with full brightness and sound on. Be sure to keep a spare battery or be near an outlet when watching movies. Otherwise, the battery performance was around 2 hours under normal, everyday use.

The G45 surprisingly is a quiet and cool laptop, considering the HD capabilities and the power it must have under the hood. While the fan does spin up a few times, unless you’re using the laptop in a library, you won’t notice the fan sound, especially when you’re sitting back and enjoying an HD-DVD movie.

Conclusion

Pros:

• Great everyday performance
• Good gaming performance
• HD-capable laptop
• Good sound for a laptop
• Lots of connectivity options
• Black piano chassis
• Giant 17” 1080p display
• HD-DVD burner

Cons:

• Short battery life while watching movies
• HD-DVD
• Price
• Very big and heavy (~10lbs)
• Included digital cable tuner requires CableCard

Toshiba has packed in everything you need for watching HD content and then some. Whether you want to game or even get some complex Photoshop work done, the high horsepower combination of an Intel dual core processor, NVIDIA discrete graphics, and a healthy 3GB of RAM will handle just about anything you throw at it. You even get an ATI TV Wonder digital cable tuner, which combined with the HD-DVD drive and 1080p capable display will leave you in HD heaven. The laptop performed well while watching HD content and gaming, but the battery life wasn’t long enough to complete an HD-DVD movie. The G45 seems more like a multimedia desktop replacement with its short battery life, but you’ll probably be tethered to a power outlet just to finish watching a movie, HD-DVD or not, from beginning to end. It’s hard to recommend the G45 because of its price and also since HD-DVD is a dying technology. You will find better options, such as Toshiba's Satellite X205 which has a better configuration and is less expensive.