Toshiba Qosmio F50-10Z

Priced at a reasonable £899, the Qosmio F50-10Z offers a wide range of multimedia features. It also houses Toshiba's new Quad Core HD processor, a chip separate to the main CPU that aims to boost video performance -- something we first heard about back in June. You can imagine, then, our excitement to review the lap and find out how performance stacks up.

Design

Aesthetics were clearly high on the agenda for Toshiba when designing the Qosmio F50, but the glossy black and silver chassis looks and feels just a little tacky. A bewildering array of lights adorn the already over-the-top chassis -- thankfully one of the touch-sensitive buttons lets you turn the unnecessary ones off . Harmon Kardon speakers, controlled by an old-fashioned dial, manage to produce deep and rich, if not incredibly loud, audio.
The keyboard is sturdy and features very little flex, but the glossy coating is way too slippery for extended periods of typing -- a prime example of style over substance. Various ports are dotted around the chassis, including four USB (one of which doubles up as an eSATA port), one mini-Firewire, a multi-format card reader and an aerial socket for the hybrid (analogue and digital) TV tuner. There's also an HDMI output, though to make full use of this you'll need to add a Blu-ray drive, as only a standard DVD rewriter is included.

Features

With a resolution of 1,200x800 pixels, the bright 15.4-inch widescreen display is good for 720p HD video, but not 1080p. True HD aside, Toshiba makes much of its Quad Core HD processor that's housed within the Qosmio F50. This aims to provide extra oomph when video editing and watching films, as well as let you control the laptop by using hand gestures via the built-in webcam.
But is this Quad Core HD thing really worth shouting about? If you're only interested in the gesture feature, the answer is a resounding 'no'. We gave it a fair crack of the whip, but it was a painful process with most of our gestures being completely ignored.
For movies, though, the Quad Core HD processor does perform quite well. We tried out the Upconvert feature (upscaling to the rest of us) while watching Ocean's Thirteen and video did appear more detailed, though closer inspection does reveal a heavy amount of sharpening that can end up making certain scenes look worse.
There are also some important caveats regarding Upconvert. You can only use it with the included Toshiba DVD Player software and, more importantly, it won't operate when the laptop's running off the battery. When activated, you also lose certain features, such as fast forward and rewind, and the laptop fan soon ramps up to an annoying level.

Performance

With its Core 2 Duo P8400 (2.26 GHz) processor, 4 GB RAM and Nvidia Geforce 9600M GT (512 MB) graphics, the Qosmio F50 returned some decent benchmark scores. In PCMark 2005 it notched up 5,445, while the 512 MB Nvidia Geforce 9600M graphics card helped drive it to a score of 4,920 in 3DMark 2006. Battery life wasn't quite so hot, though, at 88 minutes in the BatteryEater Classic test and two hours and 13 minutes in the less strenuous Reader test. But weighing in at a hefty 4.1Kg (including power adaptor), it's unlikely you'll be using much away from the mains.

Conclusion

While the Quad Core HD processor works well when upscaling DVDs, the gesture-control feature is next to useless. That said, the Qosmio F50-10Z is reasonably priced at £899, it has plenty of features and, as long as the over-the-top chassis doesn't put you off, it serves well as a mid-range, entertainment-focused laptop.

SAMSUNG X360

Describing its X360 as 'lighter than air', Samsung is looking to persuade potential buyers that there are alternatives to the MacBook Air. At 1.29kg, the X360 is only a smidgen lighter than the Air, but it's also substantially cheaper than the equivalent SSD MacBook, at around £1,300, and includes a host of features that Apple charges extra for.

Design

With its smart red and black chassis, the diminutive X360 makes a good first impression, and it's clearly designed with portability in mind. Ports are kept to a minimum, with the chassis home to just VGA, HDMI, gigabit LAN and three USB sockets. These are joined by a 34mm ExpressCard slot on the left and a multi-format card reader on the right.
Samsung's desire to take on the lightweight Air also means there's no DVD drive, although you do get an external USB model included in the price.
Open the lid and you're greeted by a very Air-esque keyboard, with each key poking out from its own slot in the chassis. The keyboard isn't particularly comfortable, however. We found the flat, plasticky keys too slippery to type on at speed, while the cramped shift and arrow keys on the right-hand side proved similarly tricky to master. If you're prone to forgetting passwords, the fingerprint reader, at the bottom right of the keyboard, lets you log on with nothing more than the swipe of a pinky.

Features

Like the £1,760 MacBook Air, the X360 comes with a 128GB solid-state drive. Although the actual performance benefits of SSDs are debatable, they place less of a demand on the battery compared to traditional hard disks. They're also very expensive, however, so Samsung has done well to include a 128GB model at this price.
Another power-saving feature is the display, which uses an LED backlight. Measuring 13.3 inches and with a resolution of 1,280x800 pixels, it's impressively bright -- your eyes will soon start complaining when it's at full whack. Horizontal viewing angles are also good, but vertical angles aren't so impressive -- tilt the screen up or down by even a small amount and clarity will be lost.
Being a Centrino 2 laptop, you also get 802.11n Wi-Fi, while other extras include Bluetooth and a built-in webcam.

Performance

Samsung was clearly aiming for decent battery life with the X360, and the Intel Core 2 Duo U9300 certainly doesn't place much strain on the six-cell battery. But, while it's not particularly power-hungry, neither is it going to impress performance-wise. With a clock speed of just 1.2GHz, this processor won't thank you for troubling it with intensive applications such as video editing. That said, multi-tasking more basic applications within the installed Windows Vista Business isn't a problem.

Combined with 3GB of RAM and Intel's GMA X4500 graphics chipset, the X360 scored 3,322 in PCMark05 -- had it not been for the SSD, its score would most likely have been much worse. It really suffered in 3DMark06, though, only managing a miserable 676. Needless to say, playing the latest games on this laptop isn't an option.
If battery life is more your thing, the X360 will most definitely appeal. Samsung quotes up to 10 hours of use from a single charge, and, in Battery Eater's undemanding Reader's test, we managed 9 hours and 31 minutes. If you plan on doing more than slowly scrolling through a word document, around 6 hours' use is more likely. Battery Eater's more aggressive Classic test exhausted the battery in 5 hours and 6 minutes, which is hugely impressive for such a light laptop.

Conclusion

The Samsung X360's lightweight design and extra-long battery life are its main attractions, and, while Samsung couldn't squeeze a DVD drive into the chassis, it has found room in the budget for an external model. Similarly impressive, at this price, is the inclusion of a 128GB SSD.
Build quality is acceptable but, if you're expecting something similar to the aluminium-clad MacBook Air, you'll be disappointed. On the whole, though, this is a decent effort from Samsung.
If you can stomach a slight drop in screen size, however, Sony's Vaio TT series is well worth a look. Only slightly heavier, the TT has the bonus of a built-in DVD drive, which may be enough to swing it for some.