Toshiba unveils Satellite P500 Blu-ray laptop

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By Tim Danton in Berlin

Posted on 3 Sep 2009 at 16:14

Toshiba may have waited a long time to deliver its Blu-ray equipped Satellite P500 laptop, but it's done so with a bang.

"One thing we are introducing for the first time this year is a Blu-ray player, because we want to offer access to all the content that's out there to our customers," said Thomas Teckentrup, the general manager of Toshiba Europe during the laptop's launch today at IFA Berlin.

"It's all about HD: HD on sound and HD on vision."

The vision side is handled by an 18.4in LCD with a 16:9 ratio. It will be available with two resolutions: one at 1,680 x 950, the other 1,920 x 1,080.

We want to offer access to all the content that's out there to our customers

High-definition video demands lots of storage, and the P500 will include space for two hard disks offering up to 1TB of space.

An Intel Core 2 Duo processor and Nvidia Graphics (either the GeForce GT510M or GeForce GT530M) will be the powerhouse behind the laptop, and there will be support for writing Blu-ray discs as well as reading them.

A TV tuner will also be squeezed inside, while a multi-touch touchpad allows support for gesture controls.

The Satellite P500 will also be the first laptop to include Toshiba’s new Media Controller, a piece of software that Teckentrup promised will make it incredibly easy to share media across your TV, your phone and your computer.

A swish video attempted to prove this point, with the idea being that all your devices will appear on one screen and you can then drag and drop to decide what plays where.

To our eyes, however, it still looks too complicated for most people, and there’s the big problem that all your devices will need Media Controller installed – the next round of Toshiba TVs will by default.

The P500 will be released in the fourth quarter of this year, no doubt in tandem with Windows 7.