DVD-Burning Laptops

Take note: The first laptops with recordable DVD drives are here. I looked at shipping versions of Apple's PowerBook G4 and Toshiba's Satellite 5205-S703. Outfitted with DVD-R/-RW drives, these laptops are serious rivals to desktop PCs.

The $2699 Satellite contains a 1X DVD-R/-RW drive that also functions as an 8X DVD-ROM drive and a 16X/10X/24X CD-RW drive. The $2999 PowerBook features Apple's SuperDrive--a combination 1X DVD-R/-RW drive, 6X DVD-ROM drive, and 8X/4X/24X CD-RW drive. Granted, both drives are slower than those found in most desktops, but each worked just as promised when I employed the two notebooks to burn video files in my informal tests.

The PowerBook G4 comes with a more robust software package: It includes IMovie, an easy-to-use movie-creation program, and IDVD, a program for burning the final movie on the SuperDrive. The Satellite ships with Panasonic's MotionDV package, which is a little harder to work with than Apple's IDVD.

The PowerBook also has a slight edge in looks: It's dressed in stylish burnished titanium and measures just an inch thick when closed. But it's the PowerBook's wide-angle screen that sets it apart: Measuring 15.2 inches, the screen has a native resolution of 1280 by 854, perfect for DVD playback or viewing big spreadsheets. At 5.5 pounds, the PowerBook is an ideal travel companion, and it also has a DVI port for connecting it to a digital display--a first on a notebook.

The Toshiba holds its own, however, with a head-turning marine-blue case. Its screen is a comparatively modest 15 inches with a standard aspect ratio, but this notebook has its share of extras: Front-mounted audio controls, a handy front-mounted LED battery gauge, a Secure Digital slot, and booming sound. At 7.8 pounds, however, it's harder to lug around.

Both units have 60GB hard drives, built-in Wi-Fi (802.11b) for wireless networking, and FireWire (IEEE 1394) ports to import video camera data.

Using a 2-GHz Pentium 4-M processor and 512MB of RAM and running Windows XP Home, the Satellite 5205-S703 scored 104 on PC WorldBench 4--about what we'd expect for its configuration. It also had a great battery life of just over 3 hours.

The PowerBook uses a 1-GHz PowerPC G4 processor and 512MB of RAM; because it runs Mac OS X, we couldn't test it using PC WorldBench 4. It seemed plenty fast while creating and burning video, but felt slightly sluggish in basic tasks.