Digital Trends

Toshiba Qosmio G45-AV690 April 9th, 2008 | by Josh Norem

Use and Testing


The Qosmio’s a massive notebook, make no mistake about it. We’ve seen some big notebooks in our day, including the recent Dell XPS M1730, but it’s still surprising to see such a gargantuan machine. Weighing in at 10.6 lbs even without its super-sized power brick, the G45 is a substantial notebook, and it feels incredibly solid and well-built - like it’s been chiseled out of granite. The LCD frame in particular feels like it’s made of solid steel and is very rigid.

We plugged the machine in and had to wait just 44 seconds before we arrived at the Vista Ultimate desktop, which is impressively fast. Given this machine’s considerable horsepower, Windows Vista ran very well at all times, and we never experienced any issues or hang-ups. Its Windows Experience Index is 4.5 which is high for a laptop.

Once at the desktop we were dismayed to see it packed full of trialware and what Toshiba calls “special offers.” Not only does Toshiba install eight of its own Toshiba-brand software packages, such as Toshiba Disc Creator for example, but it also has installed eight third-party programs (Google Desktop), four trial software packages and 11 “special offers,” which are links to services such as LoJack, Napster, and so forth. Toshiba needs to get with the times and, yes we’re going to say it, be more like Sony, which recently announced it would begin stripping two of its notebooks of all bloatware at a customer’s request.

Naturally, a notebook with big bones like this won’t offer much in the way of portability and battery life. We performed a DVD rundown test on the G45 and it squeezed out one hour and forty-five minutes, which is actually pretty impressive considering its size.

Since it includes NVIDIA graphics we did a little gaming on it, and came away dissatisfied. Toshiba doesn’t brand this as a gaming machine so we didn’t expect much. As it turns out you can play games on the G45, but not hardcore 3D titles like Crysis. The 8600M GT will be fine for older titles though, and less demanding 3D games like Peggle obviously run just fine.

The real draw here though is multimedia content – watching movies and listening to music – and the G45 is absolutely stunning in this regard. The 17” widescreen display is gorgeous and very sharp, and HD DVD movies look amazing on it. And unlike most notebooks, the G45 has an amazing sound system; quite possibly the best we’ve ever heard on a notebook. The satellites get very loud, but music and dialogue is crystal clear at all times. It’s so good we can almost imagine kicking back a good ten feet or so from it and watching a movie on it. The built-in subwoofer doesn’t thump much, but if you’re close to the laptop you can actually feel bass, which is quite an achievement for a notebook. We also loved the spinning volume wheel on the left-side of the keyboard. Toshiba also includes Dolby simulated surround sound, but it’s not convincing.

Just spin the dial to control volume. You can also turn on blue LEDs underneath it for nighttime use.

And finally, the G45 includes an ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner, which is capable of delivering premium channels such as HBO as well as over-the-air HD programming. Unfortunately, you will need a technician to come to your dwelling to install the service, so we were unable to test it.

Conclusion

There’s certainly a lot to like about the Qosmio G45-AV690 . It’s easily one of the best multimedia notebooks we’ve ever tested, and watching movies on its gorgeous display is a real pleasure. It’s a shame that one of its key features – an HD DVD burner – won’t have much usefulness in the future, as it diminishes the G45’s overall future proofing. That’s too bad, because this is one heck of a notebook otherwise. In fact, if it shipped with a Blu-ray drive (or HD DVD/Blu-ray combo drive) and ditched the bloatware, we’d have no problem recommending it without reservation.

Pros:

• Amazing sound system
• Beautiful high-res display
• Powerful

Cons:

• Add-on digital cable requires tech visit
• HD-DVD burner is already obsolete
• Bloatware installed