Toshiba goes Quad Core with the Qosmio laptop series

Posted by Duncan Madden on Tue 17 Jun 2008

Three new models serve up HD quality from SD discs

So we've just emerged from the darkened depths of one of the most heated press conferences we've ever seen to mark the launch of Toshiba's Qosmio F50, G50 and X300 Quad Core laptops.

Why was it so heated? Simply because Tosh unveiled its Quad Core HD technology to claims that these machines can run HD quality films from bog standard DVDs via a dedicated processor for Blu-ray rivalling images, leaving three other processors simultaneously able to process and work at premium speeds on other things. Multitasker.

Equally, if not more exciting, is the inclusion of hand gesture control, Minority Report style. A quick demo and lift of the hand, palm facing the Qosmio's screen saw the film playing instantly pause. Same gesture again and we're up and running. Using a dedicated series of pre-determined gestures ("to avoid people just making rude signs" according to Toshiba), you can move between files, control the mouse cursor, click by flicking your thumb down, flick between multimedia apps with the swipe of a hand and more. It looked and worked pretty well in our mini hands on.

Dressed in slick glossy black, the F50 and G50 each offers real time upscaling of standard def pictures to HD quality, video editing, high speed transcoding (the demo showed it to be twice as fast as non-Quad Core rivals), and that hand gesture control.

The F50 serves up a 15.4-inch screen, compared to the G50's 16:9 widescreen 18.4-incher.

The third entry is the altogether gaudier X300, ridiculously branded the Fire Shark thanks to its lurid red flame design. It may appeal to some but we T3ers thought it looked like a souped up Citroen with flames painted down the side.

Targeting the gaming market, the X300 is drowned in a sea of funky red LEDs, casing and detail for a "refined and tactile experience".

It's not all about the rouge though, as under the flashy flame featured bonnet sits an Intel Core2 Duo Extreme CPU, dual HDDs and GDDR3 SLI graphics. An NVIDIA GeForce graphics chip and Harman/Kardon sound system round out the deal.

There was no doubt however that it was the Quad Core HD processor and claimed top quality upscaling that ruffled the feathers of some of the older, more set-in-their-ways journalists attending the event. Us? We're willing to try anything that means HD quality results from DVDs we've already paid, happy to sit back and watch the cynics fight the merits of Blu-ray 'til downloading takes over.

We'll be covering the new Tosh lappies in a video review later on so keep them peeled for a visual hands-on and then let us know what you think.