Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Toshiba to Offer HD DVD Laptops in 2005
Posted by James Fee in "HARDWARE" @ 10:00 AM
"Japan's Toshiba Corp. will introduce laptop computers with HD DVD technology in December 2005, aiming to pressure rivals in the battle over formats for next-generation DVDs, the Nihon Keizai daily said on Wednesday. The paper said Toshiba, Japan's second-largest electronics conglomerate, would price the new laptops at a level similar to that of its current high-end DVD-equipped models, at around 200,000 to 300,000 yen ($1,845 to $2,770). The new laptops will be released under its "Qosmio" brand, and will play regular DVDs and CDs in addition to HD DVDs, the paper added"
An interesting announcement, but probably too late to help the HD DVD format. If Dell or HP announced that they were offering HD DVD next year, we'd probably sit up and take notice, but Toshiba's announcement won't get much press. In fact, this week Sony announced that they would be able to produced a hybrid Blu-Ray/CD that could be read on ordinary computers. With that kind of compatibility, there is almost nothing that the HD DVD can do to overcome the huge lead that Blu-Ray has over them.
An interesting announcement, but probably too late to help the HD DVD format. If Dell or HP announced that they were offering HD DVD next year, we'd probably sit up and take notice, but Toshiba's announcement won't get much press. In fact, this week Sony announced that they would be able to produced a hybrid Blu-Ray/CD that could be read on ordinary computers. With that kind of compatibility, there is almost nothing that the HD DVD can do to overcome the huge lead that Blu-Ray has over them.
