This is my first review of a laptop. Although i have read numerous of them, it turned out to be harder than i thought. So be gentle.. 
Specs of the Toshiba Qosmio F30 (European model)
Build & Design
I like the Qosmio's design a lot. The exterior is silver and the interior has a black brushed steel look to it.
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The speaker grills and the buttons above the keyboard make this notebook look really good in my opinion.
The overall build quality is very decent, it feels very sturdy and the hinges for the screen are good. When the screen is closed though, it is not as tight as i would have liked. If you push the closed screen up, like you do when you want to open it (but with the lock on it so that it can't actually open), you can feel that the screen goes up a bit instead of staying tightly closed. The battery is also not as tight on the chassis as i would have liked, but i might be able to fix that myself by tightening the screws somewhere.
//edit: I fixed the somewhat loose battery very easily. I folded a small piece of paper so it could fill up a small space which allowed the battery to move. Battery is tight now.
Compared to other 15.4" notebooks, this one is a monster. At 4.3 kg it weighs just as much as 17" models and the chassis is very thick, which you can see on the picture.
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I believe that for most people this is a real desktop replacement, but i feel fine taking the Qosmio with me in a backpack or moving it around the house.
It's also nice that the Qosmio has a CD/DVD slot instead of the typical fragile CD/DVD load drawer that most laptops have.
Screen
The Qosmio screen is incredible. Colors look very good and the brightness is insane. You can turn the brightness down and it still looks good. There is a very small amount of light leakage at the top of the screen, which i hadn't noticed until i specifically looked for it. Also, the pictures taken with my mobile phone make it look worse than it is in person. The light at the top in the first two pictures is not the leakage That is just the title bar of the window..
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this is taken with maximum brightness, but the phone camera can't handle that, in person it doesn't look like the whole screen is one big light leakage like on the picture I can't see any light leakage..
...
taken with a lower brightness so that the phone can capture the screen without getting the white glow over the whole screen, can't spot the light leakage..
...
picture from another dark screen without a white title bar in the top, the screensaver. The brightness is lowered a bit so that the camera can capture the screen how it really looks.
...
picture from the same screen but with the brightness to a maximum again. Phone camera can't handle that but here you can spot a bit of leakage at the top of the screen..
Overall i am very happy with the screen, i have compared it side-by-side next to a Dell inspiron 6000 and the Qosmio blows that specific Dell away. The colors are so much nicer, black looks more black and white is more white. The insane brightness of the screen also makes the Dell look like it has its brightness turned down to its lowest setting, when its actually on its brightest. I would have appreciated a higher resolution as i will have to do some programming on it, but i'm not disappointed with the 1280x800 either. I am simply happy with it.
Speakers
The Qosmio F30 has built-in Harman Kardon Speakers, as you will probably know. I had read that they were good laptop speakers but i was totally astonished when i heard the sound. I am no sound expert but the 'depth' in the sound is incredible (in terms of laptop speakers ofcourse) and you can actually feel some bass. The sound is crisp and clear and the volume has a lot of power as well, which i appreciate a lot as i will be watching movies on the Qosmio, most of the time with some noise in the background. The volume control wheel is very nice as well.
Benchmarks
I have never run any benchmarks on any system so i do not know the rules, if there are any The benchmarks are done without tweaking or overclocking, on stock settings and drivers.
Super PI 2M digits: 1:22s
I compared the score to benchmarks from reviews of other notebooks which have the T2400 and i guess this score is as expected for a T2400 with 1GB RAM...?
3dmark05: 4031
...
The 3dmark05 score however, is above expected! Most of the notebooks which feature the GeForce Go 7600 256MB score about 3400/3500 on stock settings so this must be really good? Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that i used the freeware version of 3dmark05..
Heat & Noise
I can be very brief about this part; the Qosmio stays pretty cool and very quiet! The only places where it gets a bit warmer than cool are: the area where the A/V buttons are (but you will actually never touch this area, only the buttons if you press it and they don't get hot) and in the middle part on the bottom. But even for a longer period, i can keep it on my lap very comfortably. And i am still wondering if it is on or not because i can't hear anything! The Dell i6000 sounds like an airplane next to the Qosmio
//edit: the adapter, which is pretty big by the way, does get really hot but i don't know if this is normal for an adapter or if it is too hot/dangerous.
Keyboard & Touchpad
There is no flex to the keyboard and the keys are very responsive. They have a very nice kind of rubbery feel to them when you press the keys. It has a few very nice Fn + Fx functions like touchpad on/off and with one of them you can enable/disable Bluetooth and Wireless, independant of each other. Which is very handy for me as i switch a lot between wireless networking and wired networking, and i use bluetooth frequently but i don't want to keep it on all the time. The A/V buttons above the keyboard as well as the brightness up/down buttons are very handy also.
The touchpad isn't the best touchpad i have felt but it's not bad either. It took some time for me to get used to it and now it feels just fine. The buttons click nice as well.
Battery
If i keep the brightness on 4/8, which is fine for normal office tasks or browsing, i think i can get more than 3 hours of battery life (WiFi and Bluetooth are on as well). I think the battery life is very decent for a laptop like this.
QosmioPlayer/QosmioEngine
I may be stupid but: What is it? Where is it? What does it do? I don't get it
Is it active when you play dvd's in InterVideoWinDVD and MediaCenter? Because i do notice a difference in the video quality when i compare a movie being played in those players and the same movie being played in media player classic for instance...
...
Review not finished yet
Specs of the Toshiba Qosmio F30 (European model)
- Processor: Intel Core Duo Processor T2400 (1.83GHz/2MB Cache/667MHz FSB)
- LCD Display: 15.4" WXGA (1280x800) with TruBrite
- Memory: 1GB (2x512MB) DDR2-SDRAM at 533MHz
- Hard Drive: 2 x 80GB 5400 RPM (RAID)
- Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 with 256MB dedicated
- Windows XP Media Center Edition
- DVD+/-RW/R & CD-RW slot w/Double Layer Support
- Wireless: Integrated 802.11b/g & Bluetooth
- Extras: Built-in TV Tuner, 5-in-1 memory card reader, Harman Kardon Speakers
- Weight: 4.3 kg
Build & Design
I like the Qosmio's design a lot. The exterior is silver and the interior has a black brushed steel look to it.
...
The speaker grills and the buttons above the keyboard make this notebook look really good in my opinion.
The overall build quality is very decent, it feels very sturdy and the hinges for the screen are good. When the screen is closed though, it is not as tight as i would have liked. If you push the closed screen up, like you do when you want to open it (but with the lock on it so that it can't actually open), you can feel that the screen goes up a bit instead of staying tightly closed. The battery is also not as tight on the chassis as i would have liked, but i might be able to fix that myself by tightening the screws somewhere.
//edit: I fixed the somewhat loose battery very easily. I folded a small piece of paper so it could fill up a small space which allowed the battery to move. Battery is tight now.
Compared to other 15.4" notebooks, this one is a monster. At 4.3 kg it weighs just as much as 17" models and the chassis is very thick, which you can see on the picture.
...
I believe that for most people this is a real desktop replacement, but i feel fine taking the Qosmio with me in a backpack or moving it around the house.
It's also nice that the Qosmio has a CD/DVD slot instead of the typical fragile CD/DVD load drawer that most laptops have.
Screen
The Qosmio screen is incredible. Colors look very good and the brightness is insane. You can turn the brightness down and it still looks good. There is a very small amount of light leakage at the top of the screen, which i hadn't noticed until i specifically looked for it. Also, the pictures taken with my mobile phone make it look worse than it is in person. The light at the top in the first two pictures is not the leakage
That is just the title bar of the window.....
this is taken with maximum brightness, but the phone camera can't handle that, in person it doesn't look like the whole screen is one big light leakage like on the picture
I can't see any light leakage.....
taken with a lower brightness so that the phone can capture the screen without getting the white glow over the whole screen, can't spot the light leakage..
...
picture from another dark screen without a white title bar in the top, the screensaver. The brightness is lowered a bit so that the camera can capture the screen how it really looks.
...
picture from the same screen but with the brightness to a maximum again. Phone camera can't handle that but here you can spot a bit of leakage at the top of the screen..
Overall i am very happy with the screen, i have compared it side-by-side next to a Dell inspiron 6000 and the Qosmio blows that specific Dell away. The colors are so much nicer, black looks more black and white is more white. The insane brightness of the screen also makes the Dell look like it has its brightness turned down to its lowest setting, when its actually on its brightest. I would have appreciated a higher resolution as i will have to do some programming on it, but i'm not disappointed with the 1280x800 either. I am simply happy with it.
Speakers
The Qosmio F30 has built-in Harman Kardon Speakers, as you will probably know. I had read that they were good laptop speakers but i was totally astonished when i heard the sound. I am no sound expert but the 'depth' in the sound is incredible (in terms of laptop speakers ofcourse) and you can actually feel some bass. The sound is crisp and clear and the volume has a lot of power as well, which i appreciate a lot as i will be watching movies on the Qosmio, most of the time with some noise in the background. The volume control wheel is very nice as well.
Benchmarks
I have never run any benchmarks on any system so i do not know the rules, if there are any
The benchmarks are done without tweaking or overclocking, on stock settings and drivers.Super PI 2M digits: 1:22s
I compared the score to benchmarks from reviews of other notebooks which have the T2400 and i guess this score is as expected for a T2400 with 1GB RAM...?
3dmark05: 4031
...
The 3dmark05 score however, is above expected! Most of the notebooks which feature the GeForce Go 7600 256MB score about 3400/3500 on stock settings so this must be really good? Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that i used the freeware version of 3dmark05..
Heat & Noise
I can be very brief about this part; the Qosmio stays pretty cool and very quiet! The only places where it gets a bit warmer than cool are: the area where the A/V buttons are (but you will actually never touch this area, only the buttons if you press it and they don't get hot) and in the middle part on the bottom. But even for a longer period, i can keep it on my lap very comfortably. And i am still wondering if it is on or not because i can't hear anything! The Dell i6000 sounds like an airplane next to the Qosmio
//edit: the adapter, which is pretty big by the way, does get really hot but i don't know if this is normal for an adapter or if it is too hot/dangerous.
Keyboard & Touchpad
There is no flex to the keyboard and the keys are very responsive. They have a very nice kind of rubbery feel to them when you press the keys. It has a few very nice Fn + Fx functions like touchpad on/off and with one of them you can enable/disable Bluetooth and Wireless, independant of each other. Which is very handy for me as i switch a lot between wireless networking and wired networking, and i use bluetooth frequently but i don't want to keep it on all the time. The A/V buttons above the keyboard as well as the brightness up/down buttons are very handy also.
The touchpad isn't the best touchpad i have felt but it's not bad either. It took some time for me to get used to it and now it feels just fine. The buttons click nice as well.
Battery
If i keep the brightness on 4/8, which is fine for normal office tasks or browsing, i think i can get more than 3 hours of battery life (WiFi and Bluetooth are on as well). I think the battery life is very decent for a laptop like this.
QosmioPlayer/QosmioEngine
I may be stupid but: What is it? Where is it? What does it do? I don't get it
Is it active when you play dvd's in InterVideoWinDVD and MediaCenter? Because i do notice a difference in the video quality when i compare a movie being played in those players and the same movie being played in media player classic for instance...
...
Review not finished yet
