Japan: Toshiba to Offer HD DVD Writable Laptop

Toshiba plans to unveil a laptop PC that will support a write-once HD DVD-R format, which the company says will be the first of its type. It's scheduled to emerge first in Japan by late February.

The unit (model G30/97A) will be an upgrade of Toshiba's current high-end Qosmio G30 entertainment laptop. Some Qosmio models already contain an HD DVD reader and are on sale in major markets worldwide, according to published reports, but do not have disc-writing capabilities.

The write-disc computer will include an Intel 2 GHz Core 2 Duo processor, a 17-inch 16:9 widescreen display, and 1920x1280 resolution. Toshiba said the laptop will include a 320 GB hard drive, DTV tuner and HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) output. The unit will run on the new Windows Vista Home Premium operating system, to be launched globally in a few weeks.

Hitachi Maxell will begin selling blank HD DVD-R discs a few weeks prior to the launch in Japan.