When you first boot up the Qosmio G20, you notice two things: the incredible brightness and clarity of the 17-inch screen, and the crisp, punchy music jingle emanating from the two Harman Kardon speakers embedded above the keyboard.
The first impressions are of elegance and quality. Everything down to the
shiny black finish points to the next level in laptop design. There's even a little steel knob for adjusting the volume, and you need only glide your finger over the main controls.
Apple's stylish G4 Powerbook and the Sony Vaio have some serious competition in the G20, design-wise.
This, Toshiba tells us, is the device to drive our home-entertainment needs.
The idea is that the Qosmio sits as a component in the lounge, feeding DVD-quality video, photos and music through the TV and stereo system. A TV tuner card within the G20 records live TV to the hard drive for later viewing. Built-in wi-fi lets you stream internet radio and video feeds directly from a wireless router. It makes the DVD player, VCR and CD drive redundant. And at the end of the day, it's still a powerful laptop capable of doubling as an office workhorse.
The question is whether the G20 is practical. In reality, it appeals to a niche group of tech-savvy, entertainment-hungry, home-office workers, and the pricetag will deal most of us out from the start.
Technically, the G20 has some kick. Gaming fans and graphic artists will have enough power to work with.
A two-gigahertz Intel Pentium M760 processor powers the G20, which comes with a gigabyte of memory, an 80-gigabyte hard drive and a 128-megabyte NVidia GeForce Go 6600 video card.
I fed the G20 into a BenQ projector to power my home theatre system with pleasing results. The G20's slot CD/DVD drive is quiet and you have the option of running DVDs from WinDVD or Windows Media Player.
A software interface called Qosmio Player lets you manage video, audio and pictures, but its design is disappointing. I'd rather see the Qosmio loaded with Windows Media Centre, a much better multimedia user interface.
A remote control powers Qosmio Player, with an infrared adapter picking up the signal.
With another adapter you can even feed an Xbox or PlayStation console into the G20.
The laptop actually has two RAID hard drives, one mirroring the content of the other, which is a great safety mechanism - if one drive fails everything is backed up on the other.
As usual, Toshiba delivers connectivity in spades. Wi-fi is there for connecting to a wireless network, as is Bluetooth for short-distance connections to phones, handheld computers and headphones.
There are USB and iLink ports, S-Video and a bay accommodating SD and Memory Stick storage cards. Spare PC card slots give more flexibility and a TV input port lets you feed your TV aerial directly into the G20.
Battery life isn't spectacular - the twin lamps powering the bright screen, speakers and DVD drive suck the juice. You'll get two hours out of the G20 with the DVD player running - enough to watch an average-length movie. Still, this laptop is likely to be plugged into the mains most of the time.
Don't try taking it on a plane, and don't try holding it with one hand. At 4.3kg, the G20's portability is limited. It's a desktop replacement for the affluent and trendy in this age when the unsightly rubble associated with desktop computers has become unfashionable.
Qosmio G20
* Pros: Powerful, classy design; great entertainment device.
* Cons: Heavy; Qosmio software patchy; short battery life.
* Herald rating: 7/10.
* Price: $5999 (15-inch version $4999).
Toshiba’s Qosmio G20 takes laptop design to a new level.
When you first boot up the Qosmio G20, you notice two things: the incredible brightness and clarity of the 17-inch screen, and the crisp, punchy music jingle emanating from the two Harman Kardon speakers embedded above the keyboard.
The first impressions are of elegance and quality. Everything down to the
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