Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV600 Review by LAPTOP Magazine

Toshiba touts the new Qosmio G35-AV600 notebook as the ultimate portable home entertainment center, and we agree. The G35 is loaded with A/V ports and multimedia components and sports a beautiful 17-inch widescreen display. It also features the most powerful audio system we've ever heard in a notebook.

The G35's 16 x 11.6 x 1.8-inch black case is offset by a metallic silver top and a thin slice of silver trim around the lower casing. Pop open the lid and your eyes are immediately drawn to the massive 17-inch WXGA+ (1440 x 900-pixel) widescreen display. The screen is crisp, colorful, and exceptionally bright, thanks to a combination of Toshiba's QosmioEngine video enhancement and Ultimate TruBrite dual-lamp backlighting technologies; the viewing angle is also outstanding. The display's glossy coating enhances the overall image quality, but it tends to reflect ambient light and can be distracting when viewing dark movie scenes.

Sharing space along the front bezel are blue and amber LED system indicators and a slot-loading SuperMulti DVD optical drive that supports 11 media formats. You'll also find a wireless on/off switch that helps preserve battery power. The keyboard layout is spacious and well designed. In addition to a full-sized keyboard, the G35 has 12 multimedia function buttons, a fingerprint reader, and a nice big volume control dial that can be used while the lid is closed.

A new programmable Dual Mode touchpad features one-touch icons for launching e-mail and Web browser applications and other user-selectable programs. You can create custom tap zones in each corner to open the start menu, maximize and minimize the current application, or run a program of your choosing. Horizontal and vertical scrolling is also supported. We liked having the ability to control most of the desktop from the touchpad, but it took some getting used to. You'll have to keep an eye on where you're tapping, or you may end up opening programs accidentally, as we did the first few times we used it.

At the heart of the Qosmio G35 is Intel's 1.83-GHz Core Duo Processor T2400, 1GB of DDR2 memory, and an Nvidia GeForce Go 7300 video controller with 256MB of GDDR2 graphics memory. The system turned in a good score of 221 on our MobileMark 2005 test. The 3DMark03 score of 3,415 isn't great, but the G35 should have no trouble handling most 3D games in low resolution. The battery supplied only 1 hour and 56 minutes of juice; however, this system wasn't designed to be used unplugged.

Digital entertainment and expansion ports are plentiful, including an antenna port for use with the internal TV tuner card, component video outputs and inputs, plus an S/PDIF port for connecting the Qosmio to surround-sound speakers. The Qosmio G35 comes with nearly every attachment you'll need to get started, including a TV coaxial adapter, a composite A/V adapter, and a component video cable. You also get a USB IR receiver, an IR blaster for controlling your TV set top box, and a Qosmio remote control for use with Windows XP Media Center Edition and Toshiba's QosmioPlayer, which plays CDs, DVDs, and TV without booting into Windows.

The integrated TV tuner did a good job of rendering our cable signal, but some channels were a bit fuzzy. Channel changing could have been a bit quicker. Our review system came with two 80GB SATA hard drives set up for optimal storage capacity (160GB), but you can use Toshiba's RAID software to mirror the drives for enhanced data protection. Wireless connectivity is provided by Intel's integrated 3945ABG (802.11a/b/g) network adapter and a built-in Bluetooth adapter.

Also new to the G35 is a one-bit digital amplifier, which drives a set of Harman Kardon Bass Reflex speakers. The Qosmio's audio quality is remarkably full for a notebook system, producing rich medium and high tones and a healthy dose of deep bass response. Even with the volume cranked all the way up, the sound remained even and distortion-free.

The Qosmio G35 is covered by a standard one-year warranty, which includes Toshiba's At-Home repair service and 24/7 telephone support. In addition to Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, the system ships with Microsoft Office OneNote 2003 and Works 8.5, Intuit's Quicken New User Edition 2005, InterVideo's WinDVD 5 and WinDVD Creator 2 Platinum, and Sonic's RecordNow! Basic Edition for Toshiba. Several virus scan and anti-spam trial programs are also included.

At $2,399, the Qosmio G35-AV600 is pricey, but this is no ordinary notebook. Armed with a dual-core processor, lots of hard drive space, and more multimedia features than you'll find in any other laptop, this upgrade is hands-down the best desktop replacement/entertainment center combo you can buy.

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