Laptop with bells, whistles and high definition DVD

After writing hundreds of articles about high-definition DVD and Blu Ray, the two standards battling it out to replace the beloved DVD, I finally have one of the new-format drives in my own house all to myself.

It's been a big build-up, but my first full-length, high-definition DVD movie experience has left me impressed.

Toshiba has come out with a new multimedia laptop - the Qosmio G30 with a 17in high resolution screen - which allows the enhanced image on the DVD to be displayed in its full glory.

Only a 42in flat-screen will really do HD-DVD justice, but the Qosmio's bright screen makes for superb viewing on a smaller scale.

It's the most fully-functioned laptop I've come across and also the biggest, weighing a hefty 4.5kg.

I've been alternating between using it at my desk and plugging it into my TV aerial in the lounge to record live TV using its analog/digital tuner. The G30 is no friend to the traveller but is a good versatile multimedia device for around the home.

Presented with Windows XP on boot up, the Qosmio also has Windows Media Center Edition 2005, the interface for managing and playing your music, videos and pictures and for recording live TV.

The interface looks great on the Qosmio's screen and once you've set the computer to scan for TV channels and loaded on the music you want, the media centre is ready to act as your entertainment hub. The familiar TV recording and scheduling suite is a breeze to use and there's no lag in retrieving and playing archived shows.

The keyboard layout favours quick access to video, music and TV. Along the top of the keyboard, positioned between the embedded Harman Kardon speakers, are 11 multimedia buttons that will take you directly to the TV viewer or music player and control playback and recording.

The multimedia functions are repeated on the remote control that comes with the Qosmio. A big metal dial on the G30's side controls volume. There's also a fingerprint scanner for secure log-on.

Under the hood, the G30 has some impressive hardware. Based on Intel's 2.16GHz Core Duo processor, there's 1GB of memory and two 100GB hard drives. Nvidia's relatively new Go GeForce 7600 256MB graphics card is used which is great for gaming or graphic-intensive applications. The G30 also sports Intel's High Definition Audio chipset, which delivers more powerful and full-sounding audio and supports Dolby Digital.

In terms of connections, the G30 has all the bases covered - an HDMI port for plugging the laptop into your high-definition TV, two S-video ports, VGA, Gigabit Ethernet, Firewire, video in connector, two PC card slots, four USB slots, flash card multi-reader, 802.11G wi-fi and Bluetooth 2.0.

One of the first to market worldwide with a HD-DVD laptop, Toshiba obviously made sacrifices to get the technology out early.

Despite the bright screen, you can squeeze up to three hours of battery life out of the G30 when the disc drive isn't being used.

My only serious disappointment with the G30 is that the HD-DVD drive that makes HD movies look so good is "read only" - it doesn't allow you to write information to the discs.

One of the big advantages of HD-DVD is that the discs can store much larger amounts than regular DVD - up to 30GB on a single HD-DVD disc. That has huge implications for how we burn and store our digital content.

While you can still burn CDs and regular DVDs on the G30, the absence of a write function for HD-DVD lessens the impact of the new technology. The WinDVD HD software takes a while to launch HD-DVD discs, but delivers all the functions you'll need. In the G30 lies an early adopter's dream entertainment machine. With the inclusion of HD-DVD writing the next model should be near perfect.

Qosmio

Pros: HD-DVD playback, high resolution screen, HDMI output.
Cons: HD-DVD drive is "read only", no supplied HDMI cable.
Price: from $6499
Herald rating: 7/10