Today's two-topic column focuses on the striking new M65-S809 laptop from Toshiba and some things that I left out of a recent column devoted to Apple's new remote control iMac G5 desktops.

Let's start with that Toshiba laptop, which right now is the apple of my eye for Windows-based portables. With a strikingly attractive copper-colored case, a 17-inch diagonal color screen and built-in Harman/Kardon SRS speakers, this Toshiba boasts one fine feature that is going to leave the competitors scratching their corporate heads and wondering, "Why didn't we think of that?"

Toshiba's engineering elite realized that lots of people who buy a multimedia computer want to play movies or listen to CDs without going through the whole 4-minute Windows XP-is-booting-up-so-kindly-cool-your-heels rigmarole every time they just want to play a disc.

So the folks at Toshiba broke out their miniature soldering irons and wired the new laptop so that the movie and music playing hardware fires up at the push of a button. That leaves Windows XP Home Edition to lurk unopened in the box.

Beyond saving time, this neat addition spares us worker bees from seeing something on the computer that we'd feel guilty not finishing and lets us launch unfettered into wasteful relaxation and enjoyment.

This saves on battery juice, too, since the machine only needs to work like a music/movie player rather than doing all the screen updating, Web checking and other stuff Windows does to suck laptop batteries dry.

At $1,579 the M65 represents the latest incarnation of the company's venerable Satellite series that won many loyal followers over the past decade--not as many as the iMac G5, perhaps, but we'll get to that in a bit.

If you've been laptop shopping lately you'll note that this is a pretty steep price at a time when portables are widely available in the neighborhood of $1,000 or less.

The M65 comes with every top feature I can think of, however, and that's how Toshiba pitches this product. That 17-inch screen, for example, uses Toshiba's WXGA TruBrite screen technology, and the display is in the same DVD-friendly 16:9 letterbox format as on the Apple iMac G5.

The 100-gigabyte hard drive is pretty much unheard of among laptops and it shines for those who use their computers for creating, editing and burning home movies.

Like the iMac G5, the Toshiba M65 boasts both USB 2.0 and FireWire connections for cameras, camcorders and such and the bundled ArcSoft ShowBiz moviemaking software is easy to use and as intuitive as any I have tried.

Adding to the M65's high price is a versatile DVD/CD burner that handles all types of --R and +R formats, and also burns in the double-layer mode that increases the capacity of a single DVD blank to 8.5 gigabytes from the regular 4.7 gigabytes.

A standout feature is an option to run the drive at slow speeds when playing movies and then jack things up tenfold to move computer data back and forth on the hard drive.

As to oranges, I am delighted to say that my recent review of the iMac G5 left out some great stuff that I'd like to remedy today. To recap, Apple has updated its iMac desktop line to include a remote control that lets users get away from the mouse and keyboard to watch movies and photos and listen to music.

But I left out the new built-in video camera at the top of the iMac's signature off-white plastic case. Based on Apple's popular iSight video cameras, the little built-in lens makes a snap out of heretofore bothersome things like video phone calls and video IM sessions.

Above all, I've got to tell you about the new Photo Booth software that goes with the camera. Photo Booth displays a window showing whatever is in sight of the camera, and when a user clicks a red camera icon it counts down 4 seconds and then snaps a still frame of the scene.

A palette of video effects embellishes these images to include tricks like mirrored images and various color schemes, ranging from X-ray to sepia to psychedelic.

Binary beat readers can participate in the column at chicagotribune.com/askjim, or e-mail jcoates1@aol.com. Snail-mail him in Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611.

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