Toshiba ships first US laptop with HD DVD-R

Toshiba's HD powerhouse, the Qosmio G45-AV680, has gone flying off of the production line and is now ready to ruin your credit. The 17-inch, $3,199 laptop we mentioned in June is the first US model to ship with an HD DVD-R drive, and also includes a USB HD tuner for the full-on high definition experience. The Santa Rosa-based entertainment workhorse sports the Intel PM965 chipset with a 2GHz Core 2 Duo T7300 CPU, 2GB of RAM, two 160GB hard drives, a NVIDIA GForce 8600 GT with 512MB of RAM, 802.11a/g/n, Bluetooth, four Harmon Kardon speakers, a fingerprint reader, and built-in webcam. Toshiba is including the kitchen sink at no extra charge. The G45 is available now from Toshiba Direct.

[Mike @ Jul 24th 2007 12:06PM]

oh good lord yes!

[Mike @ Jul 24th 2007 12:08PM]

blu-ray is for douche bags, and your comment proves it

[paloooz @ Jul 24th 2007 12:10PM]

Eh, for that much money I'd buy a 17" MacBook Pro. Pretty much the same specs, only 1" thick and doesn't come with stickers all over it and doesn't come with the Windows tax.

But that's just me.

I just don't really care about HD formats yet, I'll continue to download Blu-Ray/HD-DVD rips.

[Adam Poulsen @ Jul 25th 2007 10:25AM]

I love macs as much as the next guy...hell I own a 2 of um. To say that a Macbook pro has the same specs as this machine is crazytalk. RTFA.

[redspear @ Jul 24th 2007 3:20PM]

Well you wouldn't get the HD-DVD R which is great if you do video editing and is a lot more money especially if you got the Blu-Ray burner from apple. You are also stuck with that tacky apple logo on the cover for everyone to see. personally I would get the ultra thin toshiba with a blur-ray burner myself though. But notebooks don't cut it I need at least a 3.0 ghz xeon for Scenarist.

[michael @ Jul 24th 2007 4:14PM]

Yeah, anytime a more higher priced PC comes, I'll definitely promote Apple's computers, just to show that Macs aren't so expensive. Even though they still are.

I seriously don't get why people have to make those comments. There's a big difference between this Toshiba laptop and a MacBook Pro. One, is the OS they use. Two, what specs are included in each of them. And 3, the design of each of them.

Pricing means little in terms of computers.

[paloooz @ Jul 24th 2007 4:40PM]

I've already stated that I don't care about HD-DVD.

Aside form that, C2D, 2GB of RAM, 17" display (1920x1200 or not), 8600 DX10 card, bluetooth, camera, wireless N, etc.

The only differences are:

1. OS. MacBook Pro wins, I don't use Windows and have no intention of doing so. If I were given the laptop in this summary, I would put Linux on it.

2. Design. I don't like big flimsy plastic laptops with screens that are 3/4" thick. MacBook Pro wins.

I am not advertising Apple computers, I am saying ... in MY comment, that I would rather spend $3000 on a MacBook Pro than on this heap. Heap being what I think of it.

Got it.

[Poom @ Jul 25th 2007 3:31AM]

No, I don't get why you would have to mention the MacBook Pro in the first place since this laptop isn't all that similar to the MacBook Pro.

I hate it when Apple fans always have to praise Apple in every frigging post. I bet you'd say that you'd rather buy an iPod if this was about a new DAP by Sony or Samsung.

I'm so darn sick of all these Apple comments. They're making me starting to hate Apple solely for the ignorant fanboys.

[strider_mt2k @ Jul 24th 2007 12:13PM]

I hope it also feature drool protection.

Nice!

[Stephen @ Jul 24th 2007 1:08PM]

Ignore the above comment... Reposted it in it's proper place.

[strider_mt2k @ Jul 24th 2007 1:48PM]

No worries.

Happens to the best of us.

[Erik @ Jul 24th 2007 12:28PM]

Oh good lord!

Do you people always have to start this crap every time somebody mentions one of the formats?

Let's just get every format war going on at once! Here are a few starters:

PS3, XBOX 360, HD-DVD, BLU-RAY, MAC, WINDOWS, IPOD, ZUNE

Have at it.

[paloooz @ Jul 24th 2007 12:32PM]

They all suck! Linux FTW! :-P

[Mike Jenkins @ Jul 24th 2007 12:39PM]

I hope they mean the first US Toshiba model with an HD DVD-R drive, since HP has their Pavilion dv9500t with HD DVD-R and it's been out for a while.

[fahnboi @ Jul 24th 2007 12:48PM]

2 HDD's? i know this isn't exactly an ultraportable, but won't this have like 33 mins of battery life?

[Jo @ Jul 24th 2007 3:30PM]

It comes with a really long power cord.

[James Sonne @ Jul 24th 2007 12:49PM]

When both formats only have about 1% market share between the two of them, it's not really a war, more like schoolyard fisticuffs. How about we just wait until more than 100,000 people in the entire world care about which HD format they're going to buy before we start claiming a victor with each new product introduction.

[paloooz @ Jul 24th 2007 1:39PM]

Man, Steve. You're all over the place today.

[strider_mt2k @ Jul 24th 2007 12:58PM]

ONE THREAD TO RULE THEM ALL!

DOS 6.2.2 FTW!

[Stephen @ Jul 24th 2007 12:59PM]

Actually, dual layer for HD-DVD is 30GB, not 25 GB.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD

Also, why the religious fervor? It's a polycarbonate disc.

[Stephen @ Jul 24th 2007 1:00PM]

That reply was meant for warriorwthn...

[Stephen @ Jul 24th 2007 1:08PM]

Actually, dual layer for HD-DVD is 30GB, not 25 GB.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD

Also, why the religious fervor? It's a polycarbonate disc.

[Matt B @ Jul 24th 2007 1:38PM]

I'll wait for a price drop.

[strider_mt2k @ Jul 24th 2007 1:46PM]

Polycarbonate for...the...uh...for the win??

I don't like this game any more! >:(

[Rick wilson @ Jul 24th 2007 2:20PM]

good luck finding any 30GB media. It isn't available through the regular streams, however I HAVE been getting blu-ray for burning up to 50GB for about a year now.

[Landlocked @ Jul 24th 2007 2:32PM]

Blu-Ray or HD-DVD...it doesn't matter which one will win because there will be something NEW introduced in 8 years...and I'm not buying any discs to have them be upgraded yet again...and yes I own a HD-A1 player and HP laptop HD-DVD and hope to h3ll I don't end up on the losing side...

[James Sonne @ Jul 24th 2007 4:08PM]

Looking at things from a wider perspective, I believe eventually, if either format remains active enough to enter the mainstream at all, that the feature-set of HDDVD will draw more consumers than the technical advantages of Blu-Ray.

I think most people shopping in WalMart or in BestBuy want to hear that they can change the color of their favorite car in their favorite movie for the entire film, or alter the main character's shirt print for their favorite scene, or be able to instantly connect online to get information on the soundtrack playing in the background.

The technophile will of course be drawn by the larger bandwidth and disc capacity inherent in Blu-Ray media. Hence why these technophiles, who are mainly early-adopters as well, have already embraced Blu-Ray as their format, while the general public, who is more interested in bells-and-whistles features, may end up flocking to HDDVD when it actually makes a difference to them in 8 years when their tube TV has burned out and can only find HD LCDs on the market any longer.

[Scott @ Jul 24th 2007 4:12PM]

As soon as I can find that LG HD/BR combo drive at my favorite online retailer I'm going to buy it and stop caring who wins this next gen format.

[James Sonne @ Jul 24th 2007 4:17PM]

The LG combo player does not support HDi, so it is functionally a blu-ray player that can read HDDVD video streams, nothing more.

[Scott @ Jul 24th 2007 4:42PM]

I was speaking of the LG GGW-H10NI HD-DVD/Blu-Ray drive.

HDi dosn't appeal to me anyway.

[daftpunkrox @ Jul 28th 2007 7:21PM]

I'd suggest you to go and check out the similar models from toshiba. Don't know who designed these laptops but they are the most yuck looking laptops i have seen. those blue lights and ugly dials makes me hate it. I so badly wanted to buy a similar model but now i bought a HP in lieu