First of all Amazon sent me this laptop priority overnight (arrived the next morning, two hours after the e-mail notifying me it had been shipped) after I signed with a free trial of Prime. They also gave me a $100 discount toward the Qosmio purchase because I purchased two HD-DVD players from them back in late 2007 (when HD-DVD and Blu-ray were battling it out). What can I say? Amazon rocks! :-)
When my five-year old Medeon laptop died a few weeks ago I agonized whether to get a new laptop with HD-DVD or Blu-ray for under $1,000 as a replacement. I love high-def movies and own more HD-DVD's than Blu-ray now, but plan to get more Blu movies in the future. The Toshiba Qosmio F45-AV423 is the ideal laptop for my high-def viewing needs right now. If you value CPU horsepower, hard drive space, speedy performance, 3D-intensive computer gaming or anything not involving HD-DVD viewing (or prefer Blu-ray) there are better deals/laptops elsewhere. For road warriors that want some HD-DVD love on the go this Qosmio delivers the goods.
When hooked to my HDTV with an HDMI cable the F45-AV423 recognized it as a 1920x1080 LCD and filled the screen properly (at 1080p/60Hz). I had to turn off the laptop display on the Qosmio to see HD-DVD movies on my HDTV (regular computing applications can have both screens on). Except for some sparkles (visible only when I was really close to my HDTV) my HD-DVD movies looked as good on my TV set as my XBox 360 HD-DVD add-on (component) or Toshiba HD-A20 player (HDMI). I changed the laptop's sound output from 5.1 to 2.0 stereo and 2.1 surround, and that was reflected in the HDTV's speakers. Don't have a surround system but SPDIF is supported for surround systems without HDMI inputs). If you want to use a laptop as a primary or back-up HD-DVD player connected to an HDTV (surround system notwithstanding) the F45-AV423 passes muster.
Using the default Toshiba HD-DVD player software 18 of 20 HD-DVD's I tried on this laptop (including notoriously unreliable Universal combos like "Children of Men" and "Hollywoodland") played without a hitch. Downloading the newest/latest WinVideo program (which also supports Blu-ray) might do the trick for the few HD-DVD movies (like "American Gangster") that won't play. Even at 1280x800 on a 15.4" screen (which isn't true widescreen and has black bars) HD-DVD movies were much sharper than regular DVD's. My "Hot Fuzz" HD-DVD looked incredible (slight glare from a brightly lit room notwithstanding) and the sound was no slouch either. The Harman Kardon speakers and small subwoofer in this Qosmio are a step above the crap-for-sound audio from most laptops. The drive loads, plays and ejects discs (DVD or HD-DVD) silently, an improvement over the vacuum cleaner sound of my old laptop's drive spinning furiously when playing a disc. Other regular computer applications (computer games, web surfing, webcam, etc.) worked fine while an HD-DVD disc played, neither blazingly fast or agonizingly slow. And from a stylish point of view the black & white colors, combined with the button interface (love the wheel volume control) give this Qosmio an attractive look.
0 comments:
Post a Comment