When the initial shock of meeting the Toshiba Satellite P20 begins to wear off, one begins to see it more clearly for what it actually is. It's as though someone at Toshiba sat up one day and said, "Look, if we're going to do a desktop replacement, let's really let rip and do a proper one instead of trying to shove all these features into a conventional A4 box." Admittedly, this may have sounded different in Japanese, but the proof that something along these lines must have happened is sitting right here, on the bench.

It's big - very big, actually - and it's a rather nice shade of red somewhere between burgundy and pillar box. Arresting, but not actually garish, if you see what we mean. There's no need to pick it up to know that this is no travelling machine: 418mm wide compared to about 310mm for a normal notebook, although the rest of the dimensions (292mm x 43mm; depth x height) aren't uncommon at the chunkier end of the standard scale.

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Sure it's big and heavy, but it's also palpably well made, with a solidity and permanence entirely appropriate to a real desktop replacement. Removable modules like the optical drive and battery lock solidly into place, and while the brushed metal palm-rest may be a bit chilly it certainly doesn't sag or creak. It also looks rather good, as does the unorthodox white border around the keyboard.

The keyboard is as good, though perhaps not as sprawlingly spacious, as one might expect, given the almost unlimited room at the designers' disposal. The action is firm and fairly quiet, and there's no soggy bounce in the base plate. The touch pad also worked well, so actually getting to grips with the Satellite P20 didn't throw up any nasty surprises.

Apart from a serial port, the Satellite P20 has all the connectors a desktop PC would offer and more besides. There's parallel, four USB, VGA, S-video TV-out, 10/100Mbps fast Ethernet, V.90 56K modem, audio I/O, and even Firewire (IEEE1394, 400Mbps) making a speedy pipe to scanners and digital camcorders. On top of this lot, there's a Secure Digital flash memory card reader and twin Type II PC Card slots, stacked so a single Type III removable hard disk can go in their place if desired.

Moving inward, the core of the system is a 3.2GHz desktop Pentium 4 processor flanked by 512MB of PC2100 (266MHz) double data rate memory and a cavernous 80GB hard disk. The processor can walk the walk thanks to its 800MHz front-side bus (FSB), and data is lashed around the motherboard by Intel's i865 (Springdale) chipset, fully optimised to make the most of the extra megahertz proffered by the FSB. So plenty of power there, then.

The vast, 17-inch diagonal screen is a broad hint that something a little special lurks behind the scenes where graphics are concerned. What you get is an AGP 8x Nvidia GeForce FX Go 5200, which when asked to prove its worth delivered a score of 7,097 using the 3DMark 2001 SE performance benchmark.

This means power to spare, enough even for proper gaming with smooth frame rates and convincingly realised special effects. Yes, compared to a desktop there's an upgrade path problem, but let's face it, where games are concerned, any system is going to be looking tired in a couple of years, regardless of what GPU it's running.

The screen itself is outstanding. It operates at widescreen 1440 x 900 resolution, so it looks fabulous whether you are watching a DVD movie, playing a game or working on the Windows Desktop. The size of the diagonal keeps everything large enough to be practical, and the unusually wide range of viewing angles make this one of the most watchable notebook screens we've ever seen. It's not quite as good as a decent desktop LCD display, but it's not too far off.

The review sample was supplied with a TV-tuner module which swaps with the battery pack and, once connected to an external signal source, lets you watch television. This model comes with Windows XP Media Centre Edition too, so you have a centralised application for TV, video playback and DVD playback, along with the necessary software for time-shifting during recordings.

Basically, this means you can pause live TV (which starts recording to disk in the background), go away and answer the phone, then come back and resume watching where you left off. All that actually happens is that the recording and the playback can be done simultaneously, but the effect is pleasing. Perhaps less pleasing is the fact that you can only record the channel you are actually watching, but this limitation applies to PC-TV in general, much as it does when you record from a dedicated digital TV.

Like any desktop replacement worth its salt, the Satellite has a DVD burner capable of 2x DVD-R and 1x DVD-RW. Perhaps a dual-format (Dual-RW) drive capable of DVD+R/RW as well as DVD-R/RW would have been even better, but at least you can still burn your own DVDs without needing to buy an external drive.

When it comes to watching DVD movies or plain old audio CD playback, life is made a little easier by a set of physical play controls set into the front edge of the case. As a general rule, these are easier to get to grips with than fiddling about in software, especially if you are happily settled into full-screen DVD mode and just want to pause the player.

Sound quality is never a notebook's strongest point, simply because the physics of small speakers is their undoing. The branded Harman/Kardon speakers set into the sides of the palm-rest are actually better than most, which is to say they will do for TV and at a pinch DVD playback, but if you really want to hear the soundtrack or actually listen to music, you need to plug in an external array.

Finally, the Satellite has both 802.11b wireless networking and Bluetooth. Wi-Fi, even the slower 'b-standard' version, could be a must-have if you want to set up a wireless network in the home. In particular, think cable-free Internet access, printing, and file-swapping with other PCs. Bluetooth can be the very thing for synchronising with a handheld or a mobile handset, and in each case, the Tosh has it covered, although presumably an upgraded 802.11g model is just around the corner.

As a parting shot, a word about battery life. This clearly is not a notebook designed with either portability or battery operation uppermost in mind. You can move it easily enough, but that's probably about the long and short of it. Even so, when we put it to the test, the Satellite kept going for two hours of continuous use, which isn't bad going for a behemoth like this.

An outstanding wide screen and a great deal of power, including respectable 3D graphics handling, make the Satellite a distinctly superior desktop replacement. Its real strength is that it was designed as such, rather than being a re-purposed business machine. Naturally, you pay for the privilege, but the Satellite is well made and bursting with features too, so it's arguably worth it if you've got the budget.