Toshiba Qosmio

The Toshiba Qosmio G40 was one of the first Santa Rosa-based notebooks by the Japanese maker. Unlike the Satellite, Tecra and Portege series, the Qosmio range focuses on delivering a complete mobile entertainment platform with features like integrated TV tuner, next-generation optical format, 5.1-channel audio output, etc. The downside is that in order to fit in all these components, the 4.8kg, 17-inch Qosmio G40 can hardly be deemed portable. Unlike Sony's AR series, this Qosmio went with the HD-DVD format, an important consideration if you already have a collection of Blu-ray discs. The Toshiba G40 may be exceptionally costly--easily surpassing the S$5,000 (US$3,181.64) price point--and there are other cheaper entertainment models like the Dell Inspiron 1720 and HP Pavilion dv9500. But, to be fair, the latter models are certainly not as feature-rich. The equally capable Blu-ray-equipped Sony VAIO VGN-AR38GP is even more costly at S$6,999 (US$4,452.67), and the Fujitsu LifeBook N6420 sans HD-DVD drive runs up a S$5,888 (US$3,746.82) bill.