This laptop, with the one of the best intel mobile processors available, one of the best graphic chips available and its fast, huge storage, is the ultimate gaming and entertainment solution. What makes it better than other gaming laptops is, firstly, its relatively reasonable price. It's probably the best machine $1400 can buy. Secondly, its design is a major advantage. It's not as monstrous or exaggerated as some other gaming laptops are, but it is just impressive and nice-looking.
It's really easy to use once you receive the product, it took 5 minutes of mine to boot and set the computer. It also comes with a good set of software, like Google Chrome or an activated 30-days Norton Internet Security. Furthermore, Toshiba's own set of software is also very useful. The PC health monitor shows you values like Fan Speed, CPU temperature,Battery Health, power consumption and HDD status.The eco utility gives you a power consumption graph and your "green score", your energy efficiency.
Apart from these, the gaming performance of the laptop seems very satisfying. I only had a chance to play Battlefield Bad Company 2 with it, but it was impressive. I set all the settings to the highest value possible and I had 32x antialiasing and 16x vsync, I played on 1600x900 resolution. The game was really fluent in both single and multiplayer modes and the display was really good.
One of the most important elements of such entertainment and gaming laptops is the audio and I must say the sound system of this laptop is quite satisfying. Toshiba's long-time partner harman/kardon is a very good sound hardware producer and their laptop speakers are as good as laptop speakers can be. Even though the subwoofer cannot handle high-volume deep-basses really good, still, it is more than enough for gaming and quite pleasing for music. I'm a Pink Floyd fan and even the most complex songs of the band sound really good until VERY high volume levels.
The keyboard is one of the things I liked the most about the laptop. I'm an apple keyboard fan and I find those keyboards really comfortable and easy to use, but the keyboard of this computer is much better than them. The backlit keys are usable under all conditions and they press so nicely. I wrote a 1400 words long essay with it, during a 3 hours long marathon and it was really comfortable to use this keyboard.
The mousepad is also very responsive and useful with its multitouch feature. The click keys are a bit noisy, but I prefer tapping and the noise they cause is not a big problem to me.
The first of my concerns is about the Blu-Ray drive. I just bought a copy of Black Swan and when I inserted the disc, Toshiba Media Player showed up, but it wouldn't play the disc. So, I opened "Computer" and right clicked the disc, to play with the Corel software. The computer became really slow, windows changed its color scheme to basic and the computer stopped responding for a few minutes. I had to try shutting down through the task manager but then it suddenly started responding again. I ejected and re-inserted the disc and this time,opened it directly with the Corel software. It played flawlessly and without problems. I guess the problem was caused because Corel was running for the first time and I don't think there are any hardware problems with the computer.
The second of my concerns, before buying the computer, was about mobility. I of course didn't expect this to be as portable as a normal 15.6 inches multimedia laptop, but I was afraid it would be too heavy and large. It wasn't. Of course it is heavy, of course it is large, but it's also quite portable. I used it several times on my lap and it was very comfortable. It never got hot and didn't feel so heavy.
When using on a table, size became an advantage as the bigger display, combined with the good graphics card created a great visual experience. Also the fact that the laptop is thicker on its battery, giving it a ramp-like form when it's on a table. This is sometimes classified as a design flaw but I think it's an advantage. It makes the keys face you making writing much more comfortable and it also makes the speakers face you, augmenting the sound. One more advantage of this is that it helps cooling the laptop. This is very important because one of the potential problems of high performance gaming is that the computer may become really hot. This computer doesn't.
After all, I can say that I really love this computer. It excels in nearly all categories. It satisfies me with all its features and makes me glad I have bought this one. I have known Toshiba computers for their durability and stability, and I am sure this future-proof computer, with its components like the Bluetooth 3.0, USB 3.0' won't fail me or my gaming experience for the next few years.
Even if you are not a gamer but only some one looking for a multimedia computer or a computer to use for graphics design, consider this one.
If you're sure that you're fine with a relatively heavy and big computer, and if you have 1400 bucks that you can spend, I recommend this product to you without hesitating.
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The funny thing about this laptop is that it was the first one I picked. I wanted an affordable gaming laptop with a lot of frills (such as a blu-ray drive) good video card, processor, large hard drive space so on and so forth. I estimated my price range based around this and I kept searching for that slightly better deal after searching I could not find another laptop that I would have liked better without sacrificing one or more features that had this laptop already sold at first glance.
First and foremost I have dealt with Toshiba laptops before and though I would often say that brand doesn't matter (though some disagree) one thing I cannot argue against is that the Qosmio series of laptops have always been good (despite some of their older models being horrendously ugly).
The first thing to notice was the audio. It sports Harman/Kardon speakers. "What does that mean?" you might ask, well it means that it has speakers that are known for high quality. The great thing about the speakers is that they're loud, more than audible in a noisy room. This is great, I was excited about this. Since I first started dealing (at one point I was selling at an electronics store) with Toshiba laptops I always swore by the audio quality of their internal speakers. The audio is more than satisfying even for someone like me. Side note: I did not pay much mind to this until I was actually taking a good look at the laptop but it does have a built in sub woofer on the bottom. I did notice that it did have a good bass kick to it. Nothing a full sized sub woofer can pump out, but it is certainly a plus because it breaks off that nasty "tinny" sound you would get from normal small laptop speakers.
The second thing to notice (this should probably be first) is the case itself. The design is actually pretty sleek. It is a red and dark gray, (almost black) glossy, textured finish. The top of it clearly says "Qosmio" in shining red letters, the top also having a textured pattern giving it a nice feel that also extends to the inside where it helps to keep finger prints from showing up all over the place. The keyboard is pretty basic, I wouldn't say that it is special but exactly what I expected. The thing to pay attention to is that it is backlit with red LEDs. This actually looks fantastic and it has settings to toggle it on, off, and on with each keystroke for 1 second after (meaning it shuts down 1 second after you tap a key).
I did watch a blu-ray movie with the pre-installed Corel software and was pleased with the results. The screen is crystal clear, bright, however it has to be viewed from a proper viewing angle otherwise you get that photo-negative effect where black becomes white, so on and so forth. This is where the audio came in big time, it was perfectly audible and I was able to comfortable enjoy the movie without messing with the volume at all.
Now then, to get more technical, after all this is a gaming laptop.
I did a benchmark on Lost Planet 2 and I hammered this laptop hard. I cranked up all of the settings (32x Anti-Aliasing, full Direct x11 effects) and averaged 20FPS (it did dip pretty low when things got hairy, though). All in all, that is an amazing result for a laptop at this price. However, in order to play it comfortably with decent frame rates (as the DX11 effects and high anti-aliasing did not seem to impact the performance that much) I would recommend keeping them both off as it averaged over 30FPS making it playable.
I wanted to run more benchmarks but I do not have any Dx11 games other than Lost Planet 2. I did however (when plugged into an external monitor/TV at 1920x1080) with all settings maxed, Physx on normal, and Anti Aliasing at 2x, experience good frame rates in Batman: Arkham Asylum (I ran around 45-47FPS, this was NOT in the benchmark test though, I was just playing the game)
The immediate problem with this is: The laptop got really hot and I do mean REALLY hot. When I first considered this laptop I was deeply concerned about the levels of heat it would disperse (by disperse, I mean burn into my groin area) during normal operation. The good news is that during normal operation the laptop (and power brick) actually stayed very cool. On the flip side is that it did indeed get really hot during any gaming. I would recommend a lap desk/fan/cooler/doohickey for gaming, just for comfort, really.
Other notes: the laptop does transfer audio via HDMI if you plug it into a television supporting HDMI. It is heavy, and large, but that is to be expected, it's 17.3 inches. The battery life is pretty on the weak side, but as mentioned, it is a gaming laptop. For anyone who intends to not have access to AC power I would recommend picking up a 12-cell battery, if available.
Bottom line: It isn't perfect, but it did not disappoint one bit. It has a plethora of great features and is not violently riddled with clunky bloatware that you would get from some other laptop manufacturers. It does have some, just not as ridiculous. There is a touch strip at the top for volume, etc, be wary of this as it is very sensitive. Not necessarily a bad thing as I would like to know that it works whenever I'm going to touch it.
Oh, and, I scored a great deal for a free Xbox 360 with this purchase. Sweet.
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I was weary about buying a Toshiba because my father has a satellite that is junker (although its AMD based, go figure).
However based on the specs and other reviews I decided to pick this baby up.
I cant say I'm disappointed at all.
Build Quality -
The entire computer is built out of plastic, however it doesnt feel cheap or flimsy, its a good quality of plastic and feels really solid.
The paint and texture have a nice feel and dont attract finger prints which is good.
The screen assembly is pretty solid, the hinges are sturdy and appear they will last a good while if taken care of.
The Fusion X2 finish is nice, most gaming laptops come with very obnoxious designs and bright and annoying colors and lights everywhere.
The Qosmio however has a nice sleek and elegant paint job, the red accents are shiny and chrome-like but not too shiny. it just feels like a more grown-up laptop compared to the previous gen Qosmios.
Keyboard-
I really really like the keyboard, there is barely any flex at all, even if you push hard, it feels nice and sturdy. The keys are very nice, tactile, and quiet they feel great while typing.
The backlighting is fantastic, evenly lit across every key, with just the right amount of brightness. More keyboards need to be like this one.
My only concern was that that space bar is shorter in length that most standard keyboards, so I found myself pressing the right alt key sometimes when trying to press the spacebar. It's just a matter of getting used to it.
Also, having the full numeric keypad on the keyboard is really nice as well. I thought I wouldn't use it initially but I actually use it quite a bit.
A note to buyers about the keyboard the backlighting settings have to be changed in the BIOS, which is kind of annoying but at least they're there.
It can be set to be always on, off, or on a timer which you can set. I set mine to turn the back lighting off after 30 seconds of inactivity.
Screen-
The screen is not terrible, but it definitely could be better. The colors dont pop out like most HD screen do, and the overall picture quality comes across as bland. You can fiddle around with the intel graphics settings to get it looking a little better though.
Also when you look closely at the screen, especially in areas where there are solid bright colors (red, white, green, ect) you can see the tiny lines in the LCD panel which can be off putting at times.
The viewing angle is kind of bad too, while looking dead on, the top left/right corners get dark. Then if you angle it to eliminate that, the bottom get washed out. It only looks perfect if you view from a distance and head on which is fine for watching movies but not much else.
1600x900 res is OKAY, but it really should have been a 1080p screen to go along with the other specs of this laptop. I would have gladly payed another 100$ or so for that option.
Hardware-
This thing is a powerhouse, a GTX560 card with an i7 CPU cannot be beat. It has run every game I've thrown at it so far on nearly maximum settings.
Tons of hard drive space, it has a total of 1TB of space, with two drives. However I am confused as to why they did not include a RAID controller with this setup. Most other gaming computers that come with two drives come in RAID 0, however this did not, and I do not see any BIOS settings to enable it, so I'm assuming that it just doesn't have the ability to do RAID.
Having a blu-ray drive is awesome too, now I can bring my movies anywhere instead of just watching them on my PS3.
Touchpad-
The included touchpad is a synaptics device, and it shares the texture with the rest of the palm rest, which at times can be easy to lose your finger on the edges because it feels the same again just another thing to get used to, its not really that bad.
It's decently sized, supports multitouch scrolling and gestures, and works well enough.
The left and right click buttons feel cheap and the clicking noise they make really loud for some reason.
There is an illuminated LED strip at the top of the pad which makes it easy to find in the dark.
Sound-
The Harman/Kardon speakers are pretty good, the subwoofer actually works pretty well, you can really hear and feel the bass coming out of it.
The overall volume of the laptop doesnt get super loud (dont plan on it being able to entertain a party with music) and it desperately needs an equalizer there doesnt seem to be any kind of extra sound software included.
Overall though, its really good for a laptop, you can watch movies and play games and you dont have to turn it up much passed 1/3.
Battery Life-
Like the other reviews said, it's bad. No getting around it.
Just in the time I've taking to write this review it's gone down 40%. There's no way you can watch a full movie or try to play a game without it being plugged in, which is a shame. However you can get a good hour or so of just basic stuff like web browsing if you need to.
Considering how powerful this laptop is its not surprising. Just dont plan on using it without an outlet nearby.
Fan and Heat-
While doing basic things (browsing, chatting, videos) it stays perfectly cool and quiet.
Under heavy gaming load, it still stays fairly cool. Only the area right around the vent on the left side gets hot, the keyboard, palm rest, and touchpad never get uncomfortable.
The fan is surprisingly quiet considering how effectively it cools the system, I'm impressed.
Other thoughts-
Being a 17" laptop, this thing is pretty big, however it still remains fairly portable. I wrote this whole review sitting in bed without it plugged into anything and Its been comfortable. For true portability I would stick with a 15.6" laptop, but 17" isnt bad at all.
I wish it had a slot-loading drive instead of a tray CD drive.
If it had a better screen, RAID 0, and better battery life, it would get 5/5 stars.
Honest reviews on Toshiba Qosmio X775-Q7272 17.3-Inch Gaming Laptop (Fusion X2 Finish
I really don't have a long blow-by-blow of the greatness of this computer. The computer is huge and heavy. It will also drain battery power quite quickly. If you're looking for a super-portable, slim machine with long battery life, this isn't the computer for you. And if you're not really a devout enthusiast of gaming or multimedia (which tend toward bulky machines), this computer probably isn't the best choice for you. All I can say is that the price was REALLY nice. Between sales and free shipping, and a 3 year accidental damage warranty, I had it in 2 days for $1,600 total. I play World of Warcraft, and it plays beautifully on ultra settings with no lag, even in cities. I'm also a scientist, and I am more than able to run my softwares, statistical analysis stuff, AND play WoW at the same time without performance issues. Not like I usually do that.
There are 3 issues with this computer: two minor, one major.
The minor issue #1 is that the texture surface, while lovely, isn't truly smudge/fingerproof.
Minor issue #2: When I do pick the computer up to carry around, it's so heavy and large that I hold it in such a way that I am constantly opening up the DVD-drive on the right side. It's not a slot-loading drive, and I find myself mashing the drive eject button.
Neither one of these are a big deal. Fingerprints are easy to wipe off, and I just have to try and hold the computer differently.
The major issue is regarding driver support for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M graphics card. This is not solely a Toshiba problem, I have had similar issues with Sony, and I'm sure most all laptop manufacturers. The graphics card on this laptop is relatively new, but the drivers currently installed on this laptop are old. They're from 7 versions ago. For those of us who have put down the extra money to have a laptop that can handle games, and with this laptop marketed as a gaming laptop, we would expect good performance. I think you can understand frustration when your computer has the necessary hardware, but is stunted by old drivers that do not make the best use of its capabilities. You can go to NVIDIA's website to try and update the drivers with the brand-spanking-new releases, but they usually will not work. You must get your drivers directly from Toshiba Support as they tweak the NVIDIA drivers to work specifically on Toshiba machines. In the end, it seems kinda silly for them to create a system where they have to do that. It makes extra work for Toshiba, and they obviously drag their feet at it.
There are ways around it -you can go on Google, read through the various complaints from Toshiba owners on support forums at Toshiba or NVIDIA. People will complain that the drivers are old, they've contacted Toshiba (etc) and are brushed off, etc. There are alternative ways to update your drivers by downloading modded INF driver files, which work with mixed success. Sometimes certain features will stop working with these homespun drivers. So play around with this at your own risk. Since this graphics card is quite new, I haven't seen many robust "aftermarket" drivers for this GPU yet. I can still play WoW quite well, but I noticed after a most recent patch that my gaming performance has taken a bit of a hit. This would likely be rectified with updated drivers, but so far Toshiba hasn't done anything, and from what other users say on the Toshiba forums based on their experiences as previous Toshiba laptop owners, it may not ever happen.
SO -with that in mind, be aware that you might have to wait a few months behind many others to get your drivers updated, or they may not be updated by Toshiba at all, and it will likely require you to do something requiring modified files and not getting the driver support from Toshiba, as you would expect.
Otherwise, I like this computer. For the price, I am quite pleased. I give it 4 out of 5 stars. It would get a perfect 5 if not for Toshiba's lack of graphic driver support.
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For starters, this laptop series has great potential: Two 500 GB HD running at 7200 RPMs, 17.3 Inch Screen, USB 3.0, Blu Ray/DVD Player, great design/looks, backlit keyboard, 2nd Generation Intel i7 Quadcore 2630QM 2.0GHz, Bluetooth compatible, great speakers, Wireless N Card, elevated design in the rear side for efficient cooling, and let us not forget-the amazing 1.5 GB GDDR5 GTX 560M with Optimus Technology.
With the given price of $1400+ retail and $1299 in Amazon, a laptop with high-technology like this should have been installed with 4 slots of RAM instead of a measley 2 slots-some say you could do 2x8 GB, however ( researched the pricetag and it's not going to be cheap. Also, why did Toshiba not make it Full HD and instead of installing 720p, it should have been 1080i/p-for a 17.3 inch desktop replacement, in this age most 17.3 inch laptops are given 1080p, so this should have as well. The Biggest complaint I have is the Power Adapter-it has the type of slot that could easily get worn-down and given time, plugging the cord would eventually wiggle and loosen if you are not careful with it; Some people also complained about the massiveness of the 8-Cell Lithium Battery Pack but with any massive laptops such as this requires such power.
I was seriously considering getting the ASUS G74SX, but with this price, you can't really go wrong-if you are a true hardcore/devout PC gamer, then you would choose the G74SX as it has everything this laptop has and way more but a little more expensive-G74SX has a 3 GB GDDR5 GTX 560M Graphics Card which is twice as much as the Qosmio and the RAM is expandible to 16GB max. The only reason I bought this laptop over ASUS is because from what I heard, ASUS is notorious for mediocre Customer Service outsourced to India and foreign countries to deal with the populace. So if you have to RMA an ASUS product, it would take a very, very long time to wait for repairs-sometimes even receive a half-efficient replacement or repair in turn.
So in the end, I chose this because I did not want to spend too much on a laptop and this is great for Multi-Media Professional or for home use, great graphical capabilities, fast CPU, and not a lot of bloatware.
If you are military-don't buy computers from the BX/PX/NEX-their computers are overpriced and does not have the features that online/retail store offer. I bought a Toshiba Satellite A505 for $890 from the BX and when I went back stateside to Best Buy, I saw the ASUS ROG G51 15 inch about the same price-the difference are features and better parts for the retail offbase.
