Qosmio

Yesterday I recieved a new laptop – the Toshiba Qosmio F15 Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 multimedia machine. Amazing little laptop, that – integrated TV tuner, PVR functionality, 80GB drive, Pentium M 745/1.8ghz, NVIDIA GeForce FXGo5700/128MB, etc. Early reactions are that it’s fairly HUGE (14.7″x11.2″x1.7″) and HEAVY (8.6 lbs, plus adapter). So it’s not quite the svelte machine that my TiBook is. But then again, this machine is much faster, has better video, and can watch/record tv. The Media Center apps are an interesting acoutrement, too. Got it up and running pretty easily, but was confounded by *two* audio streams from my DirecTV box. Turned out that you have to mute the line-in audio signal, otherwise you get audio piped directly through to the speakers *and* the encoded audio from the MCE video recorder. Was proud that I figured that out. And what is the deal with user manuals only on the HD for $2500 pieces of gear? That’s B.S., thank you very much. More detailed review soon.