TOSHIBA Qosmio X505-Q850 NoteBook Intel Core i7 720QM 18.4" 6GB Memory DDR3 1066 320GB HDD + 64GB SSD HDD BD Combo NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250M - Retail

Intermittent Random Crashes

Reviewed By: Hippy Dave on 11/18/2009

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 week to 1 month

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Runs wicked fast when it works.

Cons: I wrote the "so far so good" review above -- it's now 3 weeks later and while I really like this laptop, I've run into a problem where it randomly instantaneously reboots. 3 times during a network file copy, once when I just picked up the computer from my desk, and another while typing code into my IDE. Screen goes black, bam, reboot. Going to RMA for another one and see if the replacement has the same problem. Has anyone else encountered this?

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Reviewed By: Kyle on 10/28/2009

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: 1 day to 1 week

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: I love the large screen. Runs Red Alert 3 fluidly with 900p on high settings, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising 900p on highest settings. Since I mainly use my computers for gaming I found this very satisfying becuase I was at first skeptical about the GTS 250m's preformance. With the SSD (which was the final decision maker for me) I found this system to boot up somewhere inbetween twice to three times as fast as my i7 920 desktop with a 7200 RPM drive. Aside from the monitor I found the rest of the laptop quite attractive, so long as I wipe down the fingerprint smudges every once in a while. The keyboard feels centered and for this I see why the designers didn't move the media controls to the top. The speakers sound good but if you want loud, I suggest hooking up external speakers. Also on my desk in about a 70 degree F room, I noticed the CPU never got higher than about 55% of what the Toshiba PC health monitor said, so overclocking may very well be an option.

Cons: I was a little dissappointed to find the so called "64 gig" SSD was only 47.x as I intended to put just a few demanding games on it. Also I wish there were a 500 GB 2nd hard drive option. I put in a BlueRay Disc and even though it came in perfect 1080p, I noticed a little bit of static. I am going to try a different blue ray viewer later to see if I can get any improvement. I also noticed the touchpad seemed to be nowhere near as smooth as a mouse so I went out and got a Wireless Mobile 4000 (andit works great by the way. An SLI option would have been nice. It seems like this system should have had a 260m or higher but battery life would most likely be too low. Even with the 12 cell, battery life is short for this behemoth. When you unplug the AC adapter, gaming framerates dropped to almost unplayable at my origional 900p high-ultra high settings and battery life said 98% and 54 minutes left.

Other Thoughts: I couldn't get the facial recognition to work right, maybe i'll try again in different lighting. Also the left touchpad mouse key had a minor scratch in it. Not a huge deal but I was a little dissappointed to see my brand new $1900 machine already scratched out of the box.

All in all - Preformance, but not super-preformance gaming/multimedia rig. This is for somebody who dosn't mind being tethered to a wall outlet or power source of some kind. Would liked to have more powerful mobile GPU and a bigger hard drive, or bigger SSD. If you want to run all the newest games at full settings I'd suggest you dish out an extra $1500. PS. Keyboard light looks great in a dim room.

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So far so good, but room for improvement.

Reviewed By: Hippy Dave on 10/27/2009

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 day to 1 week

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Seems pretty fast for a laptop of its price, though overall is about half as fast as my Core i7 920 desktop which I found surprising, it may be that turbo mode didn't kick in when I ran Passmark.

Once I futzed with the brightness controls the screen was bright and crisp. The overall exterior is very slick. Seems to run stable but did randomly crash once on me.

BIG DISPLAY

With all the red glowing trim & backlit keyboard it looks pretty cool in the dark.

Eco-mode button is nice if you're not plugged in.

Seems to run Photoshop pretty well, I was able to transform a 20,000px by 20,000px image (rotate & skew) in about 10 seconds.

Sound is clear but not necessarily loud.

Cons: The SSD is a standard Toshiba model rated - Passmark Sequential Read: 83MB/sec, Sequential Write: 94.1MB/sec, it could be faster.

"64 gig SSD" only reports 47.4 gigs available, over half of which is already occupied.

Why only 1080p? Why not 1200px?

Not customizable, only available with the 720QM.

The texture of the touchpad is a little abrasive.

The flat keyboard feels a little weird.

Volume control keys make loud beeping noise, but can be disabled in the bios.

Other Thoughts: Be sure to burn your recovery discs before you pull off all the 3rd party software.

Some passmark results:
CPU Mark 3630.4 (my Core i7 920 dekstop is twice that fast)
2D Graphics Mark 230.5
3D Graphic Mark 716.7
Memory Mark 1315.9
Disk Mark 801.3
CD Mark 246.4
Overall: 1316.8 (My Core i7 Desktop was 2301.7)

I really expected higher benchmark results. Even the graphics card seemed to chug a bit. Unfortunately I don't have much to compare this against.

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