It’s always been something of a geek’s dream to play Quake 3 Arena pumped up to a high resolution on the train trip home. Alas, when turned up to 1,024 by 768 resolution, Quake 3 is capable of turning an otherwise sound notebook into a quivering mess. Enter Toshiba’s new multimedia notebook, the Satellite 2800/15. It has all the features most other recently released high-end notebooks have — 30G hard drive, DVD, 128M of RAM and built-in network support — but it also hides some rather enticing extras.
The notebook’s significant 3D performance is mainly due to nVidia’s GeForce2GO chipset — the first of its kind we’ve seen in action. Combined with a sizeable 15in screen, and SVGA and
video-out, it’s more than capable of pumping out classy presentations. DVD playback is also impressive, but flickering is occasionally apparent in scenes with a lot of light. When plugged into a stereo TV, DVD sound quality is also exceptional.
The system has a built-in subwoofer, the first we’ve encountered in a notebook. As with most notebooks, the regular audio is tinny and sounds like what you get from cheap desktop speakers. With the subwoofer on. It’s more like a medi u m -sized radio, although listening to anything at high volume becomes decidedly uncomfortable.
The 6x/4x/24x DVD/CD-RW combo drive is another useful extra, but its CD burning is a little slow.
The 2800/15’s biggest shortcoming is its battery life.
Pumping out great-looking 3D graphics and playing music and DVDs comes at a high cost — one that standard battery tests don’t reveal. Battery Mark credits the notebook with one hour and 57 minutes in maximum performance mode, but listening to 15 minutes of MP3 music in this mode drains about 7-8% of the battery. Try
ing to perform multimedia tasks using battery-optimised mode is also painful. DVD playback is especially taxing — it must be run in maximum performance mode to maintain a consistent frame rate. The result is an 18% battery drain for 15 minutes of play, so don’t expect more than about 70 minutes of power. Full test results can be found on this month’s cover CDs.
Despite its minor flaws, the 2800/15 successfully combines all the best elements of a robust desktop PC for the road. It has considerable muscle for raw processing as well as graphics and multimedia. If you need a portable with high-end capabilites, you can’t go past this notebook.

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