Toshiba Qosmio G45-AV680 (Core 2 Duo 2GHz, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD, Vista Ultimate)

Pros: Powerful machine, only high end parts, long feature list, beautiful design.

Cons: Gobbs of preloaded software, no option for raid configuration despite twin HDD's, large size makes it not ideal for travel.

Summary: While this machine may be far from the ultra portable category, this should be expected with all of the hardware under the hood. Packing a 1080p capable display that is without doubt, the finest laptop display I have ever seen; big, bright, crisp, and nice wide viewing angles. With Harmon Kardon 4.1 speakers built right into the machine (yes there is a subwoofer built into the bottom) this thing bumps better than many external speaker systems. While the keyboard does not take advantage of all of the real estate offered by such a large chassis, it makes very clean and crisp key strokes that I find better than many desktop keyboards.
There is a plethora of input devises including a physical volume dial (so much better than hitting the same button repeatedly, or even worse; software only controls) a fingerprint reader that makes passwords a thing of the past once they are registered, a set of media controls above the keyboard and a second set of Media Center controls opposite the volume dial (while, it looks nice, keeps the machine more symetrical and is fun to play with, most users will probably find this second set of controls redundant). In addition to the above, it comes with a Media Center remote control and of course all the in-software buttons, which all together offers more ways to control media than you'll know what to do with. It has a webcam, external TV tuner (which I only wish was internal like on the last Qosmio seeing as it’s primary design purpose is for entertainment), HD DVD burner, express card, PCMCIA, firewire, multi-format memory card reader, and more USB 2.0’s than most people will ever need.
In addition to all of the abovementioned features, the standard hardware is nothing to laugh at either. With a Santa Rosa 2.0Ghz pumping through the data fed by 2gigs of 677Mhz DDR2 memory and 1 gig of Intel turbo memory, the machine is more than fast enough for the casual user. As far as graphics/gaming goes, it is built with the, just under, top of the line mobile video card available and part of the first group capable of running DX10.
With that said however, I was a little disappointed when attempting to play Bioshock and see what the DX10 hype is about. While the specs of the machine are even above the “recommended requirements”, I had to cut the resolution in half and turn off every visual option (including DX10) to get any playable framerate out of it. After doing a little investigation into the possible reasons for this, I noticed in the task meter, that nearly half of the system memory is consumed by preloaded software from both Microsoft and Toshiba. While much of this is fodder and can be erased immediately, a lot of this is software is required to manage the system and all of the cool features mentioned in the second paragraph. Weeding out some of this and maxing out the memory at 4 gigs might help the problem, however I don’t think that it should be necessary to tweak/tune a machine marketed at a media/gaming notebook in order for it to run games released the same month as the machine it’s self. Another letdown is that while the machine comes preconfigured with twin hard drives, it does not allow for a raid configuration leaving you bound to the relatively slow 5400 RPM speed instead of a ripping raid 0 format.
With all of this said, unless you are looking to do some serious gaming (in which case you should probably get a desktop anyway) this machine should be more than enough for some time to come. The feature list alone is impressive and while the price tag is high, building a machine with a similar configuration (and still neglecting much of the first two paragraphs) at almost any other company will cost you just as much if not more. The fit and finish of the machine is top of the line and it is honestly beautiful to look at. In summary, even though the specs are not earth shakingly powerful and Toshiba dropped the ball by not building the TV tuner into the cassis or allowing for a raid configuration, the machine is very impressive and powerful enough for almost anything you can throw at it. I’m very impressed by it and smile every time I boot her up.