Life in a glass-less house

So you’re playing a PC version of, say, Dead Space on your swanky new laptop and it’s starting to feel too real. Too unnervingly real. You’re almost hurtling away from Necromorphs along with retro-armored Isaac in claustrophobic spaces in outer space. You open your mouth. No one hears you scream. You go on a hell-raising trip to Arkham City. You get the same rush.

You’ve been playing with the Toshiba Qosmio, my friend, plain and un-simple.

Toshiba recently launched its fleet of digital must-haves geared for the bedroom avatar-controllers of the Isaac Clarkes and Bruce Waynes of the other world. These are the brand’s flagship gaming notebook PCs — the Qosmio F750 and Qosmio X770.

It also unveiled the world’s first glasses-free 3D notebook, the Qosmio F750 3D.

The new Qosmio F750 3D employs Toshiba’s 3D Window technology, which allows users to simultaneously display 3D and 2D content in separate windows in a single screen. Users can watch high-quality 3D images or enjoy 3D games in one window without any need to wear dedicated glasses or installing a dedicated panel over the display, while at the same time working, browsing the Internet or sending e-mail in another window. Man, this would be ideal for work and play. Imagine transcribing kilometric interviews while being able to watch, say, Larry David grapple with awkward existential situations in the latest season of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

3D without glasses, how on Terra Firma is that possible. Here’s the techie text:

“3D images are created using parallax, by delivering separate images to the left and right eyes. User can enjoy high-quality 3D images without dedicated glasses if the separate images are properly delivered to each eye. Toshiba has adopted a ‘face-tracking’ function and Active Lens to fulfill this requirement.

At the Toshiba Qosmio launch are Anne Chew, Toshiba Singapore marketing & communication group assistant manager; Glenn Batchelor, Toshiba Singapore distributor business group senior manager; Sharon Jabanes, Intel Philippines area sales manager; Randy Karapi, Intel Phils. marketing manager; Paige Shi, Toshiba Singapore, product marketing group specialist and models with the new suite of Toshiba notebooks

“‘Face-tracking’ allows the Web camera integrated into the Qosmio F750 3D to track the user’s face and recognize the position of the eyes. Active Lens, integrated into the LED panel, controls polarization of light delivered from the panel. These functions secure precise delivery of separate images to each eye, even when the user moves. Toshiba uses a switchable active lens to separate the two parallax images and to guide them into the left and the right eye.”

The 15-inch-wide Qosmio F750 and the 17-inch-wide Qosmio X770 boast the latest technologies and outstanding graphics performance with extremely realistic gaming experience.

Gamers will marvel at the stats of the F750: Packed with cutting-edge technologies including a 2nd Generation Intel Core i7 Quad Core processor coupled with the blazing-fast NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M graphics processor with 2GB dedicated VRAM, the Qosmio F750 is designed for stellar performance. Geared with the fast 640GB 7200rpm hard drive, and a 15.6” HD Clear SuperView LED backlight display, the Qosmio F750 lets you enjoy, according to a Toshiba executive, “life-like high-definition visuals, high-performance components and premium A/V features at your own convenience.”

The X770 kicks out the jams much harder with the NVIDIA 3DVision active shutter glasses technology.

It features a 17.3” Full HD 3D display supporting NVIDIA 3D Vision technology, allowing users to get a 3D impression in their games or Blu-Ray with the included active shutter 3D glasses. Thanks to its fast 5ms response time, the display even reproduces fast action scenes without any jitter. Offering a complete 3D experience, an integrated 3D Web Camera featuring two lenses allows for 3D video conferencing and shooting 3D photos. This, remarks one Toshiba rep, “empowers users with the ability to enjoy life-like chats with friends and family.”

But what I dig most about these notebooks are the premium-quality Harman/Kardon stereo speakers and Dolby® Advanced Audio, providing a sound more typically associated with higher-end audio systems. The Qosmio X770 even offers an additional subwoofer for powerful bass reproduction, allowing you to further amplify your entertainment and gaming experience. Newly downloaded MP3s of Donny Hathaway singing like a doomed angel at the Troubadour in Hollywood sounded smokingly good from those speakers.

The Qosmio models’ huge calculation power makes the notebooks eminently suitable for 2D to 3D conversion of movies stored on DVDs. I’ve always envisioned watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on 3D. Both Qosmio models support streaming of 3D movies to an external 3D-enabled screen via HDMI to watch 3D movies together with your posse.

So that’s that. Switching off now. Isaac is raring for a bit of ultra-violence against the void.

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For information, visit http://pc.toshiba-asia.com.