Toshiba's HD DVD-R laptop goes on sale
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(InfoWorld) - The first laptop computer to feature an HD DVD-R drive, Toshiba's Qosmio Q30, went on sale in Japan over the weekend. HD DVD-R is the read-only version of the HD DVD format and a single-sided disc can hold up to 15GB of data. The format, which is principally backed by Toshiba, is in competition with Blu-ray Disc, which is backed by Sony. The Qosmio G30/97A is an upgraded model of the existing Qosmio laptop computer that is already on sale in several markets worldwide. It is based on an Intel 2GHz Core 2 Duo processor and has a 17-inch widescreen display with 1,920 pixel by 1,280 pixel resolution, which means it can show high-definition images from HD DVD movie discs. The 4.8-kg machine also features a 320GB hard-disk drive, digital TV tuner and HDMI (high definition multimedia interface) output. ToshibaÂ announced the laptopÂ in mid-January also displayed at the recentÂ International Consumer Electronics ShowÂ (CES) in Las Vegas in January. It's on sale for around Â¥373,365 ($3,085) in Japan at present. Toshiba hasn't announced international launch plans or prices but says it will go on sale overseas. To coincide with the launch of the new laptop, Hitachi MaxellÂ is putting blank HD DVD-R media on the market for around Â¥1,500 per disc. Â
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The Barracuda 7200.11 will sell for $399. Rival Hitachi released its version of the drive for the same price in April.
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Watch out, Toshiba Samsung will launch its promised dual-format HD DVD/Blu-ray Disc player in Europe next month, the company has said, and industry insiders are already claiming the machine could be priced at just â¬400 ($548/Â£271).â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Toshiba has disclosed details of aÂ new range of laptop computersÂ based on processors from Advanced Micro DevicesÂ -- the first AMD-based machines the company has sold in about seven years. The Satellite A215 series laptops will be based on AMDâs Turion 64 X2 dual-core processors and also feature Radeon X1200 graphics from ATI, whichÂ AMD boughtÂ last year. Other specifications include a 15.4-inch widescreen display with 1,280 pixel by 800 pixel resolution, serial ATA (SATA) hard-disk drive and DVD super-multidrive, compatible with 11 disc formats, including DVD+/-R dual-layer discs. Toshiba stopped using AMD processors in its laptop computers in 2000, making its complete line Intel-only. The company didn't disclose the reason for dropping the chips, but about two years ago AMD alleged inÂ a lawsuit against IntelÂ that Toshiba had received a "very substantial" payment from Intel. Like other PC vendors, Toshiba was receiving "market development funds" from Intel worth about $25 million to $30 million per quarter and those would have been jeopardized if it used AMD chips, the lawsuit alleged. The case between AMD and Intel continues. In a statement Tuesday Toshiba said it has seen "increased consumer demand over the past two years for AMD-based platforms." The computers will be available built-to-order from Toshiba's online shop. A featured configuration, the Satellite A215-S4767, combines the Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology Gold Edition TL64 processor with 2GB of memory, a 250GB hard-disk drive, DVD supermulti drive, 802.11b/g wireless LAN, embedded Web cam, and fingerprint reader for $1,300. Â
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According to industry reports, Toshiba has invested nearly $3 million for a 30-second advertising spot in Sunday's Super Bowl. The company plans to use the spot to highlight its lineup of low-priced HD-DVD players.
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Toshiba America Consumer Products said it cut prices of its HD DVD players to boost market adoption of its next-generation DVD players by mainstream consumers after what it said was a successful fourth quarter in unit sales.
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Demise could be 'a matter of weeks' away Is Toshiba about to fall on its sword and announce the demise of HD DVD? That's certainly what one report citing an unnamed mole within the HD DVD camp is claiming, even though Toshiba itself - surprise, surprise - is having none of it.â¦
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Blog: High def radio. Few are buying. But you can tell a lot from the price.
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Major Japanese computer maker Toshiba Corp. said it is aiming to sell laptop computers loaded with its next generation DVD drive by next year.
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Reuters confirms Toshiba will cease manufacturing HD-DVD equipment, which leaves Blu-Ray as the presumptive victor in the irrelevant optical disk format war. Rob Beschizza reports in his Gadget Lab blog.
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What's next for Toshiba and for HD DVD consumers? The answers may be hidden in Toshiba's own words.
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Toshiba has abandoned the HD DVD high-definition video disc format, it announced Tuesday. (More to fol...
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Toshiba's sleek ultraportable laptop is an attention-getter that packs a ton of features into its compact package. Let's take a closer look.
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Staking its claim to a chunk of HD DVD technology, Microsoft announced today its HDi logo - representing its version of the interactivity layer of the HD DVD format - will appear on all Toshiba brand HD DVD players made from this point on, as well as on selected Universal and Paramount high-definition discs.
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Wal-Mart is offering other Balance laptops with higher configurations, including one priced at $548 that comes with a 1.1 GHz AMD Athlon 4, 40 GB hard drive and a DVD-ROM drive.
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Toshiba will begin selling later this week the first laptop computer to feature a rewritable HD DVD optical disc drive, the company said on Monday.The PC will be in its Qosmio multimedia laptop range and is firmly aimed at users who want to enjoy high-definition video on their PCs. There are two digital HDTV tuners so that one station can be recorded while watching another and the laptop comes with 400G bytes of hard-disk drive recording space. The 17-inch widescreen display has a resolution of 1,920 pixels by 1,200 pixels so is suitable for watching HDTV in full resolution.The HD DVD-R/RW drive can be used to transfer recorded TV shows or content from a high-definition video camera to disc for archiving. The drive also supports the new HD Rec format that allows for recording HD content on conventional DVD discs. With the price of blank HD DVD media still relatively high, the ability to use cheap DVD media could be a welcome feature for users. However, the capacity of DVD discs is lower so only about 24 minutes of video can be stored on a single-layer DVD.The PC is based on a 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo processor and there&#39;s a NVidia GeForce 8600 graphics processor. Other features include a harman/kardon 4-speaker sound system, 2G bytes of memory and 802.11 a/b/g wireless LAN.As to be expected from a multimedia PC with such a large screen, the Qosmio G40 is a heavy laptop. It weighs about 4.8 kilograms, so isn&#39;t the most portable machine in the world, but likely consumers will be people who live in small apartments and who want a PC, TV and video recorder all-in-one to save space.The machine will cost around &#165;400,000 (US$3,500) and it will go on sale in Japan only on Friday. Toshiba didn&#39;t announce overseas launch plans. Previous models of Qosmio PC have been put on sales overseas after the Japan launch.
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ANALYSIS Sources close to retailers indicate that Toshiba sold over 90,000 $99 HD DVD players over the weekend, and that figure only represents a portion of the retailers that participated in the frenzy.