Toshiba Qosmio F50-10Z review

Four on the floor

Behind the flashy styling is plenty of power. The processor is a recently released Centrino 2 part running at 2.26GHz, which earned the Qosmio a score of 176% in our 2D (general) benchmark - good for a laptop, and quick enough for demanding applications as well as general browsing and Windowsing. There's a healthy 4GB of RAM to keep multiple applications whizzing along without bumping into each other, and the 320GB hard disk is big enough for most music and media collections as well as plenty of programs and documents.

There's gaming potential, too, thanks to an nVidia GeForce 9600M GT graphics chip. A score of 95% in our Call of Duty 2 benchmark doesn't scale the heights of dedicated gaming laptops, but few titles should be beyond the Qosmio's reach if you're happy to tone down the quality slightly. The graphics card is also more than powerful enough to handle HD playback, should you wish to plug in an external Blu-ray drive or play downloaded HD clips, and cope with video editing and encoding.

Audio is provided by a set of Harman Kardon speakers that provide a surprisingly rich sound - and plenty of bass - to make movies and games suitably punchy. We did think they could have gone slightly louder, but that was the only fault we could find with the speakers, and they'll see you right for every aspect of entertainment.

Fast forward

Not only is WiFi built in, but it supports all the 802.11 standards up to the current Draft-n, which means the Qosmio can connect as fast as your router (or Starbucks') will permit. Impressively, there's also a TV receiver included, although it's a single tuner, so you can't watch one programme while recording another.

The combination of a powerful processor and discrete graphics does take its toll on battery life. In our light use test, the Qosmio lasted almost two and a half hours, but the 4000mAh battery could only manage just under an hour and twenty minutes in our more demanding tests. So watching a movie while you're on the train or plane isn't really going to be possible, unless you like short movies.

The battery life and misbegotten Quad Core HD processor may be a bit off-putting, then, but they shouldn't dissuade you from succumbing to a Qosmio. As well as offering plenty of all-round processing power, it's an ideal media laptop, with a built-in TV tuner, great speakers, and a superb screen - the perfect excuse to play when you should be working.