Toshiba Unveils Laptop With Instant-On TV & DVR

Patik writes "Toshiba has unveiled a new laptop, Qosmio, that allows users to watch TV or a DVD without booting the OS. The laptop turns on instantly for these functions and has a 15" near-TV quality screen. To use DVR functions like time shifting and recording, the user must boot the Windows Media Center OS."

Comments

"15" near-TV quality screen"

[mirko]

near-TV...
Is this HDTV, or older PAL/SECAM or NTSC quality ?

Re:"15" near-TV quality screen"

[nametaken]

I like the idea of the bundled remote too. I don't know about this "near-TV" thing though. How can that be? The whole deal sounds pretty nice for $2500.

Wow!

[shepd]

I wonder what Apple will do to play catchup? It'll be nice to see direct video capture on a laptop without any added hardware!

15" near-TV quality screen

[myster0n]

uhm .... that's bad, isn't it. I thought VGA screens have always been BETTER than TV screens.

Re:15" near-TV quality screen

[magarity]

Sure, VGA CRT's are better than a TV quality CRT but laptop LCD screens are fixed resolution and look mediocre at TV resolutions.

As a side note, this is just the next logical step. My older Toshiba already plays audio CDs at the flip of a switch without being booted up as a computer.

Improvement on the 2 in 1 problem

[peterdaly]

Many "2 in 1 devices" offer either a poor version of both components, or at least one of them.

This is a great step in improving the tv on computer experience.

That being said, I don't understand why they say "near tv quality" when the laptop screen is so much better than a normal TV. Does it have to do with the scaling?

-Pete

Windows Media Center Edition?

[argent]

Wonder if it'll run anything less funky, for the folks who want something with fewer frills.

Why widescreen laptops?

[oshy]

Why are laptops going widescreen? Shouldnt PCs be streaching the other way.

Lets take an example of some poor sod using MSOffice

They have the task bar down the bottom.
They may have a scrolling news bar across the top.
The will have menu bars at the top of word.
All sorts of tool bars docked with the menu.
What way up to we normally edit a page? Portrait, not landscape.

I saw a secerterys PC once that had so many extra toolbars, that using Word was like working through a letterbox.

Re:Why widescreen laptops?

[kannibal_klown]

Why are laptops going widescreen? Shouldnt PCs be streaching the other way.

I bought a widescreen Wintel laptop last year for one reason only: coding

In coding, I want as much horizontal room as possible. Vertical, I don't care as much about.

Depending on your IDE and / or options, you usually have atleast 1 pane (left of right) with an explorer / visualizer / etc. Some even have left AND right.

Don't get me wrong, when I code, I try not to go too far to the side. But every little bit helps.

The widescreen is also handy when you have a lot of stuff open. Maybe a person wants to see their AOL buddy list while they're typing (or browsing). Maybe they want to place these 2 windows side-by-side.

Granted, the "widescreen" only adds 1-2 inches of width on a 15" widescreen. But it's usually enought to make a difference.

Re:Not quite so nice

[wisdom_brewing]

maybe if they could somehow incorporate simultanious bootup?

buttons on the side

[Anonymous Coward]

My last 2 laptops have been Toshiba Satellites, and they are excellent machines.

I can only assume Qosmio will be nice as well, however I really dislike the trend of putting buttons all over the front and sides of the laptop. About twice a month my Toshiba 5202-S703 gets turned on accidentally because I hit one of the DVD buttons on the front, or a button gets pressed due to the shifting inside my carrying case.

It's really pleasant to take it out of the case when I have work to do and find it hot as hell with half the battery drained... ...of course the ultimate insult is opening the lid to find Windows Media Player sitting there waiting for me to open a file or insert a DVD.

ob linux comment

[gregmac]

There -is- an OS being loaded, just that its only going to support Toshiba's Apps... and nobody elses.

It's possible this is just some firmware on a chip that displays tv signals.. but say it is an OS, it leads to the question .. why bother with windows at all? Linux would have the capability to boot instantly, if you used some kind of suspend/hibernate feature.. so 'instant-on' basically just revives it from memory and lets you have full DVR, etc. No switching modes, and having to wait for windows to boot to get the enhanced features.

Now, by "has the ability" I mean it would be possible for Toshiba to add it in. I'm not totally sure of the APCI stuff that's in Linux now, but due to the nature of being open, the vendor can add whatever they want, as long as they have the know-how. Contrast to Windows, where they're stuck with the way Microsoft made it work.

Two words: region-free?

[Do I exist]

Is it possible to liberate this laptop from its DVD region chains?

Somebody's gotta hack this!

[gosand]

I can hear the hackers salivating now. This would be sweet to hack and get MAME running on it. Instant-on MAME machine? Sweet.

Re:huh???

[jcostantino]

The problem with viewing TV on LCD panels is that it looks like, well, it looks like shit. The pixels are too precise for playing back video like that - TV needs a certain "softness" to it. I don't know if they have a special type of LCD or if the TV tuner will do some sort of line doubling/smoothing but from personal experience, TV signals running at high resolution doesn't look right.

Re:without booting the OS

[Metamediarich]

Naive and/or ignoarnat as I may be - Why do we still tolerate "booting" as a necessary part of the process? Aren't there enough solid state options available that the OS could reside in a separate (from the hard drive) space, always running, always available? So you might still have to re-start after modifications to the OS - like security updates? - but otherwise, why do we still have this in our lives?