Toshiba Satellite L650
The Toshiba Satellite L650 won't exactly turn heads when you pull it out in your local coffee shop, but the doubters just don't know what they are missing. While the L650 looks pretty much like any other 15.6-inch notebook, it has some breakthrough technology under the hood.
No, it's not the processor that will amaze, but the built-in DVD drive; or more precisely, a built-in Blu-ray Writer drive. It not only means you can watch Blu-ray movies, but you can also write to Blu-ray discs, which offer more than two and a half times the capacity of traditional DVDs, or 25 gigabytes.
The downside is that discs are expensive, but with so many still and video cameras offering HD recording, it's good to know there's an easy way to store your artistic creations.
The L650 also offers plenty of support for the advanced disc format. It is powered by an Intel Core i5 processor running at 2.53GHz, 2GB of DDR3 RAM, a 640GB hard disk drive, and an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 graphics card with 1GB of memory.
You also get Windows 7 Home Premium, a LED display, two USB2 ports, a combo eSATA/USB port, HDMI output port, a webcam, and a six-cell battery.
All those features, plus lots of Toshiba software features, will set you back HK$8,399.
Pros: plays and writes Blu-ray discs, support for eSATA for external memory expansion
Cons: no touchscreen to take advantage of Windows 7 features, no Bluetooth
