The Qosmio F15: The Media Fan's Notebook

"Everything but the kitchen sink" is an over-used phrase that, nevertheless, is the best way to describe Toshiba's Qosmio F15 multimedia notebook. This is the kind of multimedia playground that any media fan would love.

The $2,499 Qosmio F15 is one of three new multimedia notebooks that Toshiba recently released (along with the E15 and G15). It includes a 15.4-inch XGA TFT display, an 80 GB hard drive, a 128 MB NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5700 card, an 8X DVD burner, and an 1.8 GHz Intel Pentium M Processor with 512MB of RAM.

The box had a sticker that proclaimed "Hassle-free connectivity," and they weren't kidding. The system made immediate contact with our 802.11b wireless network and, while it was a bit confused (it would also look for a hardwire network connection every time I booted up), it made the connection immediately and without trouble. The system also comes with Bluetooth connectivity.

One of the problems that often come with desktop replacement notebooks is that you end up having to attach them to a separate display in order to use them on a day-to-day basis. This is definitely not the case with the Qosmio. The 15.4-inch, 1280 x 800 LCD is the best I've seen on a notebook. It is exceptionally bright (so much so that I had to lower the intensity when doing simple tasks like word processing), and easy to read. It is also visible from a variety of angles. The