Will Toshiba Revolutionize Gaming Laptops?

Copyright (c) 2008 Titus Hoskins

The rumors have been confirmed, Toshiba has announced it will be introducing the Toshiba Qosmio X305, a high-end gaming laptop sporting some unique features that will turn a few heads, if not cause a revolution. Do we even have revolutions anymore?

Now the Qosmio brand was always a top-rated line within Toshiba - very popular with critics and users alike. If you can look beyond all the Toshiba & Third Party software they load these machines up with at the factory, Toshiba makes some half decent laptops.

However, in recent years, Qosmio which means "my personal universe" seems to have been slipping into a Black Hole with just one model listed on Toshiba's main product page. Not only is Toshiba releasing the Qosmio X305 but also the 15.4-inch screen Qosmio F50 and the 18.4-inch Qosmio G50 which will be the world's first to carry the Cell-based SpursEngine, re-christened by Toshiba as the Quad Core HD processor. The 18.4-inch diagonal widescreen with TruBrite® high-definition display will sport a true 16:9 aspect ratio - serious filmmakers take note.

Will these laptops and their new specs introduce a whole new level to gaming laptops? The jury is still out but Toshiba is introducing a few new things with these laptops, especially with the X305. This monster of a machine will sport a whopping 1 Gig of graphics processing power via the new dual-GPU card NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2.

(Side Note: some experts argue this is the wrong way to go - instead of a multi-GPU, they argue for keeping the single GPU since it can have advantages for faster applications and better power consumption with less heat release. This 1GB GPU is the same as putting two 512MB cards together thru SLI technology, isn't it?)

The Qosmio X305 will also come equipped with a 3GHz dual-core Intel processor and dual 200GB, 7200rpm hard drives, as well as 4 Gigs of cutting-edge DDR3 RAM. This machine will also sport a 17-inch display, HDMI-out and S/PDIF audio - running HD quality films from a dedicated processor which should rival Blu-ray. In addition, it will carry four Harmon Kardon speakers with a built-in sub-woofer.

What will be interesting to watch is the whole "Blu-ray vs HD-DVD" debate that seemed to have been settled. Beta anyone? However, if Toshiba can turn/upgrade existing DVDs into a higher quality by this new transcoding/upscaling technology, the fall-out could be worth watching.

Another thing to watch is the "gesture-based controls with your hands" which is enabled by the chip found in PS3s. Look what Wii did to gaming? And the GPS Chipset adds another twist for a laptop, doesn't it?

Compare "Apples to Apples"

Impressive as those Qosmio X305's specs are, the high end gaming laptop market is becoming a little crowded. You have to compare "apples to apples" when buying a gaming rig. It will have to be compared with such high end gaming laptops as the Rock's Xtreme SL8 which sports mind numbing graphics powered by twin NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTX 512MB (DX10) running SLi and Quad core Intel processors with up to 4GB DDR2 RAM (up to 800MHz). Which also comes equipped with Hi-res 17" WUXGA X-Glass (1920x1200) and the option of a Blu-ray or HD DVD Optical Drive.

And you can't talk about gaming laptops without mentioning Alienware. One of their newest machines Area-51 m17x has similar specs by offering two NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTX, (dual GPU SLI configuration) which gives you the 1GB of dedicated memory and DirectX 10 graphics. The Area-51 m17x is powered by Intel Core 2 Extreme @2.8GHz and with up to 4GB of 667MHz DDR2 Memory.

Remember The Clevo!

Plus, you can't really compare gaming laptops without mentioning Clevo which is the well-respected if not well-known OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) of some pretty good high-end gaming laptops. Brand-name laptop vendors like the ones mentioned above... Alienware, Rock, Hypersonic, Voodoo... all use Clevo components.

This Taiwanese company has just released some new machines - the 15-inch M860TU and 17-inch M570TU the which offer WUXGA (1920 x 1200) resolutions. The M570TU also sports the "Montevina" Centrino 2 mobile platform. This model also has a 2 megapixel webcam, Blu-ray drive, TV Tuner, Fingerprint reader, e-SATA and HDMI ports. Sound familiar?

All of these models and laptop manufacturers will no doubt give Toshiba some competition. Keep in mind, the competition is stiff when you consider Dell has Alienware, HP has Voodoo... so you really have some marketing power as well as gaming power behind these high-end gaming laptops.

The Qosmio X305 will probably bring all these nice features up a notch and offer a superior gaming laptop. The release date for this gaming monster is said to be around July 14 of this year. No word on the price yet but this one could be worth waiting for.

Since gaming laptops are usually overpriced for what you get; will Toshiba introduce these new laptops at a reasonable price so that the ordinary person, not necessarily die-hard gamers, can also enjoy all this new mobile technology.

Now that would be truly revolutionary.