AfterDawn: News

Toshiba gives free HD DVDs with laptops in UK

Toshiba is offering free HD DVD movie titles in the UK to consumers that purchase laptops that are equipped with a HD DVD drive. The company is giving away five free HD DVD titles with purchases of laptops, such as models from the Qosmio and Satellite ranges. The option allows customers to start building a HD DVD collection immediately without having to spend extra cash.

Such promotions have become common in the format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc. The fourth quarter is set to be another show down between the two, with both hoping it will show some new gaps in hardware and disc sales performance that each can tout in press releases we will no doubt all receive in early January before the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).



Toshiba is committed to pushing the HD DVD format with sales of its laptops. On the other side, the Blu-ray camp has the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console equipped with a BD-ROM drive, and given recent price cuts and the introduction of the "40GB model", it appears to be looking forward to great performance this month.

The Toshiba HD DVD laptop promotion ends on January 31st, 2008.

Source:
Pocket-Lint.co.uk

Written by: James Delahunty @ 26 Nov 2007 12:51

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• 5 comments

• hughjars

  Toshiba sell 10 million Laptop/Notepads a year (way more than Sony manage with the PS3).
  
  This will be a nice boost to HD DVD.
  
  A lot of execs are going to be finding out just how easy it is to hook up their Laptop/Notepad to their HD TV (likely to be a good demographic for this too) when they get home.

  2.12.2007 10:03 #1

• juankerr

  I recently upgrade to the Toshiba Qosimo F45 sries with HD DVD drive.
  
  The thing to remember is not all Toshiba notebooks have the HD DVD drive. Only the higher end Satellites and Qosimos costing well over $1K will have the HD DVD drive. Plus you'll have to make sure that the graphics system is up to snuff - a reason why I had to send mine back for an NVIDIA 8600M upgrade. The lower end Tohiba notebooks won't have enough graphics horsepower for HD DVD playback.

  2.12.2007 10:58 #2

• hughjars

  IIRC Toshiba said that almost all of their Laptop/Notpad output would have HD DVD drives built-in in 2008
  (presumably this means FY 2008, which is from April 08 to April 09).
  
  It's not true anymore that high def decoding requires expensive high powered GPUs - or CPus for that matter.
  
  As a glance at the Nvidia 8500/8600 range or the ATi 2600 shows clearly.

  2.12.2007 11:45 #3

• juankerr

  Originally posted by hughjars: It's not true anymore that high def decoding requires expensive high powered GPUs - or CPus for that matter.
  
  As a glance at the Nvidia 8500/8600 range or the ATi 2600 shows clearly.The basic Intel graphics chipset that my Qosimo originally came with was seriously underpowered for HD playback, That's why I sent it back for the NVIDIA 8600 M upgrade.

  2.12.2007 13:19 #4

• borhan9

  Not bad i would love to get one and try it out.

  20.12.2007 06:37 #5