The first laptops to make use of the SpursEngine, a multimedia co-processor
derived from the Cell chip that powers the PlayStation 3, will go on sale in
Japan in July.
Toshiba will launch its Qosmio G50 and F40 machines with the chip, which
contains four of the "Synergistic Processing Elements" from the Cell Broadband
Engine processor. The Cell chip used in the PlayStation 3 has eight of the SPE
cores plus a Power PC main processor. The SPE cores perform the heavy
number-crunching that makes the console's graphics so stunning. The SpursEngine
SE1000 will work in much the same way in the laptops.
The operating system will run on an Intel Core 2 Duo chip and the SpursEngine
will be called on to handle processor-intensive tasks, such as processing of
high-definition video. This arrangement means the laptop should be capable of
some tricks that haven't been seen on machines until now. Among them, Toshiba
said the two computers will be able to upscale standard-definition video to high
definition; transcode in realtime digital TV to MPEG4 so that the resulting
files are cut down in size by one-eighth and burn video to DVD in half the time
of current machines.
The Qosmio G50 is a multimedia laptop and has an 18.4-inch high-definition
screen, 500G bytes of hard-disk space, NVidia GeForce 9600M graphics processor,
dual digital TV tuners and wireless LAN including 802.11n. It weighs 4.9
kilograms and measures 45 centimeters by 31cms by 4.8cms. Battery life is about
4 hours. The Qosmio G50 will be cost from Y290,000 (US$2,700) and the F50, which
has a 15-inch screen and 250G byte hard-disk drive, from Y250,000. Toshiba plans
to put the machines on sale overseas but has yet to announce launch details.