Toshiba Brings HD DVD-R To Notebooks

This February, Toshiba plans to roll out the world's first notebook computer with an integrated HD DVD-R burner...but, so far, only in Japan.

With the “format war” between HD DVD and Blu-ray still in its opening rounds, next-generation DVD burners are only starting to hit the upper echelons of the personal computing market. Now, Toshiba has announced what looks to be the first notebook computer to sport a HD DVD-R drive, its Qosmio G30/97A (Japanese), an upgrade to its Qosmio G30 multimedia notebook systems.

The G30/97A will sport a 2 GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 1 GB of RAM, a 1080p-capable 17-inch (1,920 by 1,280) widescreen display driven by an Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 graphics controller with 256 MB of video RAM, analog and digital TV tuners, HDMI output, and 320 GB of storage in the form of two 160 GB hard drives. The G30/97A will also sport USB 2.0, gigabit Ethernet, 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi networking, PCMCIA, ExpressCard/54, a multi-format media card reader, VGA output, and S-Video output to supplement that HDMI port. The G30/97A will pack some heft, weighing in at 10.6 pounds (might want to get a hand cart with that) and run Windows Vista Home Premium.

If you’re wondering what you can do with the HD DVD-R write-once drive, Hitachi Maxell plans to start selling HD DVD-R media in late January; a single-sided 15 GB disc will retail for about $12.

Toshiba plans to roll out the G30/97A in February, but hasn’t announced any pricing information yet, but industry sources put it around ¥400,000 (just over USD $3,300). But, so far, Toshiba only plans to introduce the G30/97A in Japan: no word on international distribution.